though the stars walk backward
by Silver Snowblossom
Summary: Fairy Tail's Salamander, Gray decided, had to be the most infuriating person in existence. That said, joining Fairy Tail might just be the key to finally undoing Iced Shell… (Or: an AU where Gray and Lucy switch places, and Natsu meets an interesting (and annoying!) ice mage in Hargeon.)
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** **I'm really excited to be posting this. This isn't necessarily my best work, but it's the first multichapter that I managed to write more than 5K of before losing interest! I mean, I have all these ideas, I just never really explore them. **

**I think the quality might suffer a little as it gets longer, but I guess that'd be up to the readers to judge. It's a little different from my usual style though, a little less introspective and a little more of what could loosely be described as "action."**

**It's pretty much exactly what it says in the summary: it's an AU where Lucy had run away from home and joined Fairy Tail shortly after Layla Heartfilia's death seven years ago, and where Gray **_**didn't**_ **join Fairy Tail after everything that happened with Ur. Instead, he decided to devote himself to figuring out how to undo Iced Shell (which canon!Gray had done too, right up until he met Master Makarov). **

**Title is taken from E. E. Cummings' poem **_**Dive For Dreams.**_

**As always, the summary:**

_Fairy Tail's Salamander, Gray decided, had to be the most infuriating person in existence. That said, joining Fairy Tail might just be the key to finally undoing Iced Shell… [Or: an AU where Gray and Lucy switch places, and Natsu meets an interesting (and annoying!) ice mage in Hargeon.]_

* * *

**...**

_**though the stars walk backward**_

_**.**_

_**Chapter 1**_

**...**

* * *

_trust your heart_

_if the seas catch fire_

_(and live by love_

_though the stars walk backward)_

_~ee cummings, "dive for dreams"_

* * *

If he was honest with himself, Gray wasn't really sure why he'd gone to Hargeon. Sure, he'd heard rumors that there were powerful and rare magic books there, but he really should've anticipated them being just that: rumors.

He grumbled to himself as he left the shop—the _only_ magic shop in Hargeon, apparently, and not even one with interesting magic, at that. As though mocking him, the door swung shut behind him, the chime ringing merrily.

"Well, that was a total waste of time," he muttered. Maybe there was a library here? He pulled out his map, but there didn't seem to be one. It was expected, considering Hargeon was a fishing town, but the disappointment still stung.

He was really tired of every lead he got falling short.

_Face it,_ he told himself, _it's been _years_, and you haven't gotten anywhere_. The only thing he'd found that was even _close_ to undoing Iced Shell was Moon Drip, but that was utterly useless, because there was _no way_ he was going to use it. It would be as good as straight-up killing Ur. Again. And maybe she wouldn't have wanted him to spend all these years searching for a way to atone for his mistakes and get her back, but… well. She had sacrificed herself for _him_, for his own recklessness and foolhardiness, and it wasn't _fair_.

It hadn't been fair to Lyon either. Gray had single handedly crushed his fellow pupil's dreams of surpassing Ur and destroyed a second family in one fell swoop. He wondered if Lyon still hated him. Probably. He'd hate him too, if he were Lyon.

Ten years, and what did he have to show for it? Nothing. Maybe, he thought, it was time to join a guild. He hadn't accomplished anything on his own, but perhaps a guild would have the resources to help him find what he needed. Plus, most of them weren't too uptight about restricting its members, and even if they did care, he could always just leave. At any rate, it certainly wouldn't _hurt_.

The question was _which_ guild he'd join. Definitely not one back in Isvan; he hadn't returned there in four years, after he'd exhausted the relatively few resources his birthplace had. It'd hurt too much to return. Plus, Isvan didn't really have all that many guilds in the first place, and none of them were particularly good.

Fiore had a lot of guilds, from weak to strong to everything in between. But it would probably be best to join a guild with a lot of connections, so that ruled out most of them. A major guild, then, he decided. Of the major guilds… Blue Pegasus was definitely out; from what he'd heard, they were more of an escort guild than a powerful mage one. Perhaps Lamia Scale?

...Who was he kidding? He knew the only real options were Fairy Tail and Phantom Lord. Both were powerful guilds in their own right, _the_ most powerful in Fiore, each incredibly well-known and chalk-full of possibilities.

He wasn't sure which was better, though. Phantom Lord had a reputation of strength, versus Fairy Tail's reputation for massive destruction (almost entirely thanks to their Salamander). But he wasn't sure he liked Phantom Lord, though he couldn't quite put a finger on why, exactly, that was. He wasn't entirely sold on Fairy Tail, either, but he might as well. He'd just go see what it's like, and if he wasn't convinced, he'd just leave.

That was a good plan, he decided.

It was then that he realized one crucial flaw in his plan: how, exactly, did recruitment work for mage guilds? Maybe he'd know if he read _Sorceror Weekly_ or whatever more frequently, but those were practically just gossip, and he didn't have time to waste on a gossip magazine. Now, he was wishing he _had_, just so he'd know how to join a mage guild. His entire plan hinged on him actually getting in, when he had no clue how to do so.

He was a good mage, and he was _proud_ of his magic. Ur had been a good teacher, and he'd worked to improve over the years. It was her gift, the last thing he had of her. But he didn't know what level Fairy Tail expected. Surely a guild as powerful as it was would be highly selective about its members?

He was broken out of his musings when he was abruptly shoved aside. "Hey, what gives—" He broke off when he realized the girls weren't even listening to him.

"It's Salamander!" one of them squealed. He winced at her high pitched tone.

"Let's meet him!" the other said. Gray swore he could see _stars_ in her eyes.

A smirk spread over his face. It seemed luck was on his side for once. Fairy Tail's Salamander was in town, huh? Well, then, he'd just ask him.

He followed the sound of cheers (the original fangirls long-gone) and found himself in a wide square, completely jam-packed by girls, all jostling to get at something—no, some_one_—in the center of the crowd. That was where Salamander was, then.

The crowd _shifted_, and he got his first glimpse of the mage. The first thing he saw was the flickering flames ensconcing him, more produced by a snap of the finger. But the flames were relatively weak, he could easily see that much. That was strange; somehow, he expected a mage as renowned as Salamander to be a little more powerful than that.

Then he caught sight of Salamander himself, and he froze.

His heart was thudding in his ears, and he couldn't seem to look away. The rapidly diminishing rational part of his brain was protesting, and he was vaguely aware that something was _not right_ and that he should not be this captivated, but he found it hard to care around the comforting fog in his head. Slowly, he stepped forward, as though drawn to Salamander.

One step, then another…

"Igneel!" A boy with bright pink hair crashed through the crowd, tripping and slamming into the crowd just in front of Salamander, and just like that, the trance broke. As the fog cleared from his head, Gray scowled. What was that? He looked back at Salamander, all the haze gone. A flash of light drew his attention, and he lit upon the rings adorning Salamander's fingers. Now that his mind was clear, he could sense the faint magic emanating from the rings. It was _charm_ magic, which, as far as he knew, was declared illegal _years_ ago.

Just why was a Fairy Tail mage using charm magic in a random port in Fiore on a group of fangirls?

He saw a flash of blue in the corner of his eye, only to have to clamp down on an exclamation of surprise as he saw a blue cat, which, while odd, normally wouldn't have shocked him so much. No, it was the fact that it was _talking_. Okay, so magic did a lot of weird things, but since when could cats _talk?_

...And he was apparently called "Happy," judging by what the pink-haired boy (Gray mentally dubbed him "Pinky") was saying. Gray focused back on the conversation as Salamander signed a piece of paper with a flourish before shoving it at Pinky.

God, what a self-absorbed asshole. If this was what a Fairy Tail mage was like, using illegal magic and acting as though the world should worship them, then Gray was suddenly rethinking his decision to join the guild.

Pinky stared uncomprehendingly at the offending piece of paper. "Why the hell would I want your autograph?" he asked blankly. Gray winced as the fangirls let out indignant shrieks, turning on Pinky with murder in their eyes, seemingly more offended by the comment than Salamander himself.

He took a step back as they pummeled Pinky to the ground, his pink hair lost under the sea of flying hair and enraged females.

Salamander said something about a yacht party before flouncing off with an unnecessarily showy display of magic, leaving the fangirls to swoon after him, but honestly, at this point, Gray was just tuning him out. Now that Salamander was gone, though, the fangirls departed, so there was that, at least.

Gray hesitated, before approaching where Pinky was picking himself off the ground, Happy the talking blue cat hovering worriedly next to him. He might not know Pinky, but he supposed he owed him anyway, both for him breaking Salamander's charm spell, and for leaving him to the tender mercies of a crowd of rabid fangirls.

"Oi," Gray drawled.

Pinky's eyes narrowed. "What do you want?"

Gray bristled. He wasn't really sure why, but _something_ about Pinky was seriously annoying him. He shoved it down. He wasn't here to start a fight, he reminded himself.

"Thank you," he said grudgingly, the words awkward and ungainly in his mouth.

Pinky blinked in surprise. "What for?"

Was he really going to make him say it? "That mage back there was using charm magic; you charging in there like an idiot broke the spell," he explained. Don't tell him… yup, if the way Pinky was staring at him was any indication, he hadn't even realized Salamander was using charm magic. Gray wondered if Pinky even knew what it _was_. He hadn't seemed very bright so far. "I owe you one."

Pinky shrugged. "Eh." A thought seemed to occur to him, and a smirk slowly spread across his face. "Okay, then. You can buy me lunch," he decided.

Gray eyed him. Well, that wasn't _that_ bad. Fair enough, he supposed. "Alright, deal." Although, why was there such a forboding feeling in his mind?

… Something told him he was going to regret this.

* * *

Gray winced as Pinky (or Natsu, as he'd introduced himself as. Personally, Gray thought Pinky suited him better) demolished yet another plate of food. He leaned back to avoid the food flying everywhere. Pinky was practically _attacking_ the plates; he didn't think he'd ever seen anyone eat that fast. Just how much food could one person put away? He was at seventeen plates already, and he didn't show any signs of planning to stop soon.

Privately, Gray mourned for his wallet. He didn't even _want_ to think about how much the bill would cost.

"So, what were you guys doing in Hargeon, anyway?" he asked, mostly as a way to distract himself, and partially out of curiosity. "Were you guys looking for someone?"

"Aye!" Happy chirped. "Igneel!"

"We heard there was a Salamander in town, so we thought we'd check it out. Turns out it was someone else," Natsu said around the food in his mouth.

"Aye, he didn't look like a salamander," Happy said.

"What kind of person looks like a fire dragon?" Gray asked incredulously.

"He's not a person. Igneel _is_ a fire dragon," Natsu said casually, as though he were saying the sky was blue.

"A fire dragon," he repeated flatly. He was _not_ listening to this. No one had ever seen a dragon for _years_… and yet, Natsu looked completely serious about it, and despite himself, Gray found himself believing him. But still… "What, exactly, did you think a dragon would be doing in the middle of a town? Better yet, how did you think it would be possible to miss them? They aren't exactly inconspicuous, you know." Also, how in the world did Natsu know a _dragon_? And why would he be looking for him? What, did the dragon just up and disappear one day?

Natsu and Happy gaped at him, sitting shock-still, as though they hadn't even considered it. Gray groaned. "Don't tell me you're just realizing this _now_."

Natsu crossed his arms, almost defensively. "Oh yeah? What do _you_ know about it?"

"Enough to know that a dragon isn't going to show up _in the middle of town_, which is better than _you_, apparently."

"Why not? A dragon could _totally_ be in the middle of town," Natsu said mulishly, seemingly arguing just for the sake of being contrary. Gray fought the urge to bury his face in his hands. He was going to lose so many brain cells at this rate.

Happy cut in, apparently hoping to avoid them breaking out into an argument. "So we were looking for Igneel, but what are you doing in Hargeon, Gray?"

"I…" Gray hesitated. How much should he tell them? They were still practically strangers, after all, even if they'd given away their own secrets so readily. Part of him felt like he should reciprocate at least _some_ of that trust, but a larger part of him firmly quashed that thought. He really didn't like people poking their noses into his business; he'd been independent for years, and he liked it that way. It was safer. "I was looking for a rare book on magic, and I was hoping I'd find it here." There. It was kind of true, though it was more that he was looking for the magic to undo Iced Shell itself than a book.

He wasn't sure what made him do it, considering he barely _knew_ Natsu and Happy, but he found himself adding, "And I was kind of hoping to join a mage guild, but I'm just not sure how to go about it."

"Do you know which guild you're going to join?" Happy asked, tilting his head curiously.

"I was thinking Fairy Tail," Gray admitted. At that, Natsu's eyes sharpened in interest. Briefly, Gray wondered why, then dismissed it. It was probably just because Fairy Tail was so well-known, being tied with Phantom Lord as the best in Fiore and all. "But I'm not sure anymore, considering what an _asshole_ Fairy Tail's Salamander was earlier."

"Wait, what?" Natsu demanded, slamming his hands on the table. "Are you saying that guy earlier said he was from Fairy Tail?"

Gray blinked at him. "...yes? How many other Salamanders do you know?"

Natsu turned to Happy. "Have you seen him around the guild before? Because I sure haven't."

"No, you're right," Happy said. "Whoever he is, he's definitely not a Fairy Tail mage."

Gray glanced between the two in confusion, putting the puzzle pieces together in his head. Were they saying what he thought they were saying? "You're a Fairy Tail mage?" he blurted.

"Uh, yeah," Natsu said. "Didn't we mention it earlier?" As if to prove his point, he shifted slightly, giving Gray full view of the red Fairy Tail emblem emblazoned on his upper right arm.

Gray sank down into his chair. Just what was his luck? He hadn't even realized Natsu was a mage, never mind one from _Fairy Tail_. "No, you didn't. You definitely didn't."

But then his mind caught on the exchange between the two earlier. Wait a second… "So you're _definitely_ sure he's not from Fairy Tail?"

"Yeah, I'd know if he were a guild mate."

So if the mage from earlier wasn't even a Fairy Tail mage, he _definitely_ couldn't be Salamander. Then, who was he, truly? And why would he go around pretending to be a Fairy Tail mage? That, coupled with the illegal charm magic from earlier, was more than a little suspicious. Just what was the fake Salamander up to?

"I'm going to find the bastard," Natsu growled, half-rising. "I'm not going to let him get away with pretending to be from Fairy Tail!"

"You can't just go beat him up!" Gray protested. "You don't even know where he is!"

"Then I'll just find him!"

"Do you have ash for brains or something? You can't just walk up to him and punch him in the face," Gray said, exasperated. "At least come up with a plan first."

Natsu bristled at the insult. "Hey—" he started indignantly.

Gray cut him off as a thought occurred to him. "Didn't the fake Salamander say something about a yacht party or something?"

* * *

Gray had never crashed a yacht party before. Actually, he'd never even _seen_ a luxury yacht before; Isvan, cold as it was, wasn't exactly conducive to luxury travel, nevermind by _water_—it'd be a miracle if a boat could make it through all the ice—and he'd hardly spent enough time on Fiore's coasts to have seen one.

Still, he had to admit the yacht was pretty impressive-looking, looming above all the other ships and drowning the dock in dark shadows, contrasting sharply with the warm glow of light spilling out the glass windows and off the deck. Four giant pillars held up a second deck, banners and decoration draped around them. Laughter floated across the deck, and he could see numerous girls milling about, chatting and drinking glasses of what he thought might be champagne.

He crept along the dock, letting the patches of dark shadows cloak him and hide him from sight. It would've been better if it was a new moon, though; considering that the moon was full, there was practically still full visibility of the docks, which wasn't very helpful.

Why exactly had they agreed to wait until dusk fell again? Oh, right, because that was the only time they could be _sure_ the fake Salamander would be there, and they didn't want to risk tipping him off. By "they" Gray really meant himself, since Natsu seemed ready to just charge out of there at any moment, damn the consequences. It'd been hard enough convincing him not to attack Salamander in the intervening hours between lunch and now.

...During the course of which he and Natsu got into no less than five arguments. And were almost thrown out of the restaurant. God, the other mage was _infuriating. _

Admittedly, though, Gray had rather enjoyed himself. Verbal sparring could actually be quite fun, and it'd been a while since he found someone who could give as good as he got. Didn't make Natsu any less annoying to deal with, though. Idly, he wondered how Happy could put up with him practically every day. How had the cat not gone mad?

They'd agreed that Happy would fly Natsu up to the ship—and hadn't _that_ been a surprise? A talking cat who could _fly. _Gray kind of wanted to know just where Natsu found Happy—and Gray would find his own way to sneak aboard the ship. It shouldn't be too difficult, so long as no one saw the flash of light that accompanied his magic.

Ten feet away from the boarding ramp, Gray paused, watching as a pair of teenaged girls drifted up it, skirts fluttering as they walked. The security guard barely gave them a second glance… too busy playing cards with another guy with a ridiculous hairdo.

Well, if they wanted to make _his_ job easier by not paying attention like their job demanded, Gray wasn't going to complain. Still, even if they _were_ distracted, he was pretty sure they'd notice him walking right up that ramp. Instead, Gray shifted slightly, then made a dash for the side of the yacht.

No one sounded an alarm. That was good; they hadn't seen him, then. Quickly, he created an icy staircase leading up the side of the boat and dropped himself over the railing, dismissing his magic as he did.

He glanced at his surroundings. It seemed luck was on his side; he'd landed in an area devoid of partygoers, but still close enough that any noise wouldn't be suspicious. Now, where were Happy and Natsu?

A rustle of wings made him look up as Happy dropped Natsu to the floor and landed himself, wings fading away. Natsu made a retching sound and fell over as soon as he touched the deck.

Gray scowled down at Natsu's prone form, eyeing the way his face seemed to be tinged green with something mildly resembling concern. "What the hell is wrong with him?" he demanded.

"Natsu is really bad with transportation," Happy said. "He gets motion sickness."

"The boat isn't even moving!"

"_Really _bad motion sickness," Happy amended.

Gray sighed. "And you didn't see fit to mention that until _now_?"

"...Oops?"

"Nevermind." Clearly, Natsu wasn't going to be much use like this. The mage in question made some sort of unintelligible noise, but made no attempt to pick himself up off the ground. Gray poked him. Natsu batted weakly at his hand, but mostly missed. He looked kind of pathetic, actually, and it was so different from his loud self that it almost threw Gray for a loop.

Gray doubted Happy would willingly leave Natsu like this, so he guessed that meant he'd have to do this himself. "Wait here with Natsu," he told Happy. Then, without waiting for a response, he slipped away.

Only a couple meters from where he was standing, there was a massive door in the middle of the deck, but there was no way he could get in through there. It was too conspicuous, brightly-light and smack-dab in the middle of the party.

Instead, he continued along the deck, following the railing until he reached what he assumed was the middle of the ship. Rumbling began under his feet and he whipped around to see harbor shrinking as the ship pulled away from Hargeon.

Great, just great. Gray hadn't counted on the ship leaving the harbor—though in hindsight, it was obvious considering this _was_ a ship. _There goes any chance of an easy escape_, Gray thought. He'd have to find some other way to get back; he didn't think Happy could carry two people at once, and he had no way of knowing just how far they were from shore by now.

Oh well, there was really nothing he could do about that at the moment. He turned his attention back to the windows in front of him. Light was pouring out of them, so it was probably safe to assume that someone was in there. He peeked through one of them.

_Jackpot_. The fake Salamander was lounging across an expensive-looking couch, cape draped over the back of it and sipping a glass of some fruity orange beverage. At his back, there was a light-blue curtain, blocking Gray's view of whatever was beyond it. He thought it was in the direction of the main deck where the party was taking place though.

Speaking of the party… Maybe it was the wind or the distance, but Gray couldn't hear anything from it. There should be laughter or talking, but all he heard was the wind rushing in his ears. Huh, did something happen?

Although, now that he thought about it, why had the fake Salamander decided to throw a party and invited what seemed to be every girl in Hargeon to it? Especially when he'd been using charm magic at the time?

Just what was he doing?

Gray waited, but Salamander didn't seem to be doing anything suspicious—well, _more_ suspicious than he already was. He was just idly flipping through a copy of Sorceror Weekly and drinking his champagne. Just as he was contemplating whether or not to break in the room and demand answers from Salamander—not the smartest strategy, but Gray was getting impatient; he didn't like how far they were getting from Hargeon—the blue curtain was ripped aside, revealing a group of thugs, each of them carrying an unconscious girl.

Inwardly, Gray cursed. That _definitely_ did not bode well. His fears were confirmed when Salamander remarked, "Good. They should fetch a fine price on Bosco's slave market." He spoke casually, as though he were talking about produce and not human lives.

Gray's blood boiled over. _Human trafficking. _That was all the confirmation he needed to know that Salamander definitely needed to be stopped, preferably with a lifetime jail sentence.

A quick punch shattered a window and Gray slipped inside. He didn't care that he was outnumbered; from the looks of them, the thugs were just that—_thugs_. The only one in the group that seemed like they could use magic was Salamander, and Gray was pretty confident he could take him. The only real disadvantage he had here was that the thugs were still carrying the girls, and he couldn't risk hurting them.

He didn't wait for them to react to his sudden intrusion. "Ice Make: Lance!" A flurry of ice pinned most of the thugs to the walls by their clothes, though he was careful not to hit the unconscious girls they were carrying. He froze the thugs to the walls before they could think to pull away.

The girls dropped to the ground, and Gray winced. Oops. Maybe he should have waited for the thugs to put them down first.

That was five down, two to go, including Salamander. Gray ducked under the last thug's clumsy punch—too much force, not enough finesse, he noted—and the thug overbalanced, clearly expecting his punch to have hit. Already off balance, it was the work of a couple seconds to knock the guy's feet out from under him and knock him unconscious. Six down, which just left Salamander.

The mage himself was just standing there, ever-present smirk still on his face. He didn't appear particularly worried, despite the fact that Gray had just wiped out all of his goons. "A creation-type mage, huh?" If possible, the asshole's smirk just widened. This bastard, Gray thought, was seriously _beyond_ arrogant; he was going to _enjoy_ wiping that smirk off his face. Then, Salamander just had to go add fuel to the fire. "Such pathetic ice magic should be no match for my flames."

Fury bubbled up in his chest. Oh, it was _personal_ now. There was no way he was going to let a _slaver_ insult his magic, _Ur_'s magic.

Of course, Natsu chose that moment to make his entrance, bursting in from the ceiling and scattering wooden splinters everywhere. He landed, managed to look fierce for all of two seconds, then promptly turned green and collapsed.

Gray glanced up. Happy was hovering in the air near the hole; it seemed the blue cat had the bright idea of flying Natsu away from the ship so that he wasn't afflicted with nausea, but Gray could just imagine Natsu demanding to join the fight, completely ignoring his motion sickness.

Gray scowled down at Natsu. "What the hell are you doing here? This is my fight."

Natsu pulled himself back together long enough to glare back. "I told you; I'm not going to let him get away with pretending to be from Fairy Tail!"

Gray made the mistake of letting his guard down to glower at Natsu, caught up in the argument. A wave of purple fire slammed into him, and the air in his lungs was knocked out as he crashed into the wall, leaving him dazed for a couple seconds.

By the time he'd blinked the stars out of his vision, both Salamander _and_ Natsu were gone. Where was— oh. The fake Salamander (and Gray _really_ needed to come up with a better name for him or figure out his real one) was standing on the second deck, firing his magic at Natsu… who promptly swallowed the flames? Gray blinked. Okay, what kind of magic was that? Happy was carrying Natsu again, and both were hovering in the air a couple feet in front of Salamander. From here, he could just barely make out what they were saying, but it sounded like Natsu was complaining about the fire's _taste_.

Natsu sucked in a breath. "Fire Dragon's Roar!"

The resulting stream of fire made the very air boil with heat, and Gray was embarrassed to admit that he let out a yelp as he realized the fire was headed for Salamander, yes, but also him and the girls, seeing as they were directly behind the mage. Hurriedly, he constructed an ice shield to block the blast, pulling the girls behind him.

Natsu's magic was powerful, and Gray found himself reluctantly impressed. One of the thugs he'd frozen to the wall (which he'd almost forgotten about) gasped. "T-that's the real deal! That's Salamander!" he exclaimed.

Wait, _what_? Natsu was Salamander? ...Actually, Gray had no trouble believing it. Salamander was known to be a fire mage, after all, and Gray could definitely see Natsu wreaking havoc across Fiore. He didn't strike Gray as someone who understood the concept of "restraint" very well.

When the fire finally let up, the fake Salamander had collapsed, and Happy and Natsu had come to hover just a few feet away from him. "Oi," Gray snapped. "Watch where you're aiming that thing!"

"Yeah, yeah, I took him out, didn't I?"

"That roar was complete overkill!" The Fire Dragon's Roar had torn through two walls and collapsed several of the pillars holding the second deck up. Honestly, Gray was surprised the yacht was still _functional_; it was more rubble than boat at the moment. Happy didn't seem to find anything wrong with it. It was sad that _Gray_ was the voice of reason here.

Natsu crossed his arms. "You wanna go, Ice Princes?" he challenged. Wisps of smoke curled up from his fists.

A corner of his eye twitched. "_What _did you just call me?"

Natsu seemed gleeful. "Why, you scared, _Princess_?"  
_Calm_, Gray reminded himself. Now wasn't the time to get into a fight, no matter how infuriating Natsu was. If they damaged the boat, they'd never make it back to Hargeon. That said…

"Once we get back, I'm going to kick your ass, Ash-for-brains."

* * *

It didn't take too long for the boat to limp back to port, and Gray watched in grim satisfaction as Rune Knights clapped handcuffs on the fake Salamander (whose real name was apparently Bora?) and his band of thugs. The girls had all woken up and decided fleeing was the better course of valour, so all that was left on the beach were the rune knights, the newly-arrested Bora, and the wreckage of the ship, which had imploded upon reaching Hargeon, the weakened structure apparently unable to hold it together anymore.

Some of the rune knights started in their direction. Natsu's eyes widened. "Crap, let's get out of here!" Natsu grabbed him by the arm and started running, Gray trailing awkwardly behind him.

"Where are we going?"

Natsu twisted to look at him. "Fairy Tail, duh! You said you wanted to join but weren't sure because that guy was tarnishing Fairy Tail's name, right?" He didn't seem to be waiting for an answer. "Well?" he said impatiently, "Come on! The sooner you join, the sooner I get to fight you!"

"...Okay?" _Fairy Tail, huh…_

Maybe, he thought looking at Natsu, vibrant and bright despite the pale moonlight, they just _could_ help him after all.

* * *

**A/N: And that's a wrap! I know the meeting goes a little differently, but that's intentional. Gray isn't Lucy, after all, and his and Natsu's dynamics are quite different from Natsu and Lucy's. **

**There's going to be some differences between this Gray and canon!Gray too. The first can be seen already in this chapter; having not grown up in the crazy that is the Fairy Tail guild hall, he's a little more level-headed and mature than canon!Gray, and less prone to punch first think things through later. As such, he and Natsu butt heads just a **_**little**_ **less.**

**Plus, Natsu and Gray's dynamics are going to be a little different anyway, considering the differing circumstances. I headcanon that Dragon Slayers possess some draconic instincts, considering they have a dragon's sense of smell and other features, so I feel like part of Canon!Natsu's protectiveness of canon!Lucy was that sense that **_**he**_ **was the one who brought her to Fairy Tail, and dragons are pretty possessive. Thus, **_**this**_ **Natsu and going to be a little less antagonistic towards Gray and a little more… well, protective isn't quite the right word, but something like that. **

**I'm not entirely certain I captured Gray's voice—I haven't actually been in the Fairy Tail fandom for a while, but I'm delving back in and in the process of rewatching the anime. **

**Anyway, feel free to leave me a review and let me know what you think!**

**~ Silver Snowblossom**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I really just want to get to Lullabye already, but this has to be done so bear with me. This chapter is mostly just filler (Macao, Everlue), so I glossed over some things that are quite similar to canon. Really, I only included the whole Macao thing so I could explain why I toned down Gray's stripping habit. We'll get Lullabye next chapter though! XD**

**I'm actually kind of proud of myself for getting this written in two weeks—I'm not the most prolific (or motivated) writer, but I'm hoping to set myself on a two-week update schedule (posting every other Wednesday) so lets see if I stick to it, haha. **

**Well, without further ado, the second installment of **_**though the stars walk backward**_**. **

* * *

**...**

_**though the stars walk backward**_

_**.**_

_**Chapter 2**_

**...**

* * *

Meeting Fairy Tail was… interesting, to say the least. Gray just wasn't sure if it was a _good_ kind of interesting or not yet. He ducked a flying bar stool. He could definitely see where Natsu got his destructive tendencies from, considering a full-guild knock-down drag-out brawl had broken out within _seconds_ of them entering the hall.

"Is it always like this?" he asked Mirajane.

"Pretty much," she said cheerfully. A stray bottle cracked against the back of her head. Gray winced; Mirajane hardly seemed fazed.

"Oi, cut it out!" a brunette called from across the room. She was cradling a barrel of beer to her chest, and was apparently drinking directly from it. A couple more barrels were stacked on the counter behind her (hopefully they weren't empty _already_, though Gray wasn't holding his breath). Gray thought her name might be Cana or something. He wasn't really sure; there were too many new faces and he was having a hard time remembering it all. "You're making it hard to drink in peace." Actually, Gray was surprised she was still upright after seeing how much she was drinking. She was treating alcohol like it was water or something.

He edged around the outskirts of the fighting, making it to the (relative) safety of the bar. A cheerful-looking blonde was already sitting there, watching the brawl with something resembling resigned amusement. Her eyes lit up in recognition when she saw him. "You're the new mage Natsu brought back!"

Was that how he was going to be known around here? "Is that… unusual?"

"Natsu's never brought anyone back to join the guild before," the blonde mage explained with a shrug. "The rest of the guild is going to be curious."

Oh. Huh, Gray wondered why Natsu had decided to introduce _him_ to the guild, then.

"Oh, nevermind that!" she said. "I'm Lucy!"

"Gray," he offered.

She brightened. "What type of mage are you?"

"Uh, I practice Ice Make."

"Cool! We have some other maker-types—Laki over there," she gestured at a lavender-haired girl hovering at the opposite end of the guild and staying out of the fight like they were, "practices Wood Make—but I don't think we have any ice mages in the guild." She paused, then added, "I guess we do now."

"What about you?" Gray asked.

"I'm a Celestial Spirit mage," Lucy said proudly. She gestured at the keyring hanging from her belt. There were seven keys hanging from it, four gold and three silver. It was pretty obvious what she was, actually, now that Gray knew to look for it.

He didn't know much about Celestial Spirit magic, but he'd picked up some information over the years as he traveled, what with all the libraries and magic shops he frequented. First, was that Celestial Spirit keys—well, the silver ones; Gray hadn't seen any gold keys being sold in shops—were incredibly expensive. Second, the gold keys were incredibly rare; he was pretty sure there were only twelve of them. Yet Lucy had four—that was practically one third of them. He wondered how she got them all.

"Has Mira given you your guild mark yet?" Lucy asked.

Soft footsteps indicated Mirajane's approach. "Not yet," she said. "I was just about to." She set down the tray she was carrying and reached behind the counter to grab the stamp. It was a deceptively plain thing, a wooden surface with a handle attached. There were no ornaments or complicated designs, and it wasn't gilded like some of the other stamps he'd caught glimpses of when he'd stopped in other guilds in his search. He thought it suited Fairy Tail well.

"Where do you want it?" Mira asked.

Gray shrugged off his shirt and gestured at the right side of his chest, right across from his heart. Maybe it was a little sappy, putting the guild mark there. But even if he'd only been here for a few minutes, not even an hour yet, he thought Fairy Tail could be a guild to be proud of. Maybe he'd even stay, after undoing Iced Shell.

Mira brought the stamp down, leaving behind an inky-blue emblem on his chest. Gray traced it with his finger. Somehow, he'd thought he'd feel heavier, chained down to a guild. Instead, it _fit_ like it was meant to be there.

She gave him a smile. "Welcome to Fairy Tail."

* * *

Mira gave him the rundown on Igneel—how the dragon was Natsu's father and _had_ just up and disappeared one day seven years ago, and how he had taught Natsu his dragonslayer magic—so Gray couldn't say he was too surprised when Natsu ran out to rescue their missing guild member (Macao, was it?) after Romeo burst into the guild, nearly in tears. However, he _was_ surprised when Mira suggested he go after him.

Natsu didn't protest, though, when he'd caught up to him, so Gray decided to take that as agreement.

Gray sighed in contentment as the cool winds of Mount Hakobe brushed his skin. Even after living four years here, he still wasn't used to how hot Fiore got in the summer sometimes; it was very different from Isvan, which was cold practically year-round. He was actually glad he followed Natsu now.

"Hey, ice block, where'd your shirt go?"

"Huh?" Gray glanced down at his bare chest and cursed. He thought he'd finally managed to curb the habit _years_ ago—it drew too much attention to him when he was traveling, plus all the lost clothing had started to become a serious financial drain.

It was probably resurfacing now because the cold of Mount Hakobe reminded of Ur's training, though it was certainly a lot milder than the freezing temperatures of an Isvanian blizzard.

"Aren't you cold?" Happy asked from his perch on Natsu's shoulder.

"The cold doesn't really affect me," Gray said. "I'm used to it." He trudged after Natsu and Happy. The snow here wasn't too bad, he mused. At least it was only a couple feet deep, and was mostly hard anyway, so they didn't sink into it too much.

The snowstorm was kind of annoying, though, and by the time they made it halfway up the mountain, there was a light dusting of snow over his hair. None of the snow that landed on Natsu stayed, melting almost immediately, and Gray guessed Natsu was probably flaring his magic around him to keep warm.

"Macao!" Natsu shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth. Up here, the air was clearer, and his voice carried despite the raging winds.

"Quit it!" Gray snapped. "You'll draw the vulcans' attention."

As if to prove his point, there was a roar, and a giant ape-like creature launched itself over the ridge at them. Cracks spread out on the ground from where it hit, ripping through the ice.

Fire ringed Natsu's fists. "Hey monkey! Where's Macao?"

The vulcan just growled at them.

Gray knew for a fact that they could talk, which meant it was just choosing not to. He cracked his knuckles. "Guess we're doing this the hard way then."

With the both of them, it was laughably easy to defeat one vulcan, especially since all it knew how to do was punch at them. They didn't even need magic to do it. Gray easily fell in step with Natsu, and they were surprisingly in sync as they fought.

It turned out to be a good thing they hadn't used magic. A brilliant golden light emanated from where the vulcan had fallen, and it shrunk until it transformed into a mage with dark blue hair, who Gray assumed was Macao.

"He must've used take-over magic," Happy commented, fluttering back down now that the fighting was over.

Oh, that was right. Vulcans _were_ capable of that, weren't they? Gray moved towards him. "Let's get him out of the cold winds." Just because _he_ wasn't affected by it didn't mean everyone else was immune.

There was a rather spacious ice cave just a few meters away, and they set Macao down there. Gray catalogued the other mage's injuries. They didn't appear to be too bad, just a few bruises and scrapes from fighting them (which Gray felt kind of guilty about), plus a few older ones which Gray figured he'd gotten from taking out the other vulcans. Nothing life-threatening on its own.

Macao was still unconscious though, and that in and of itself could be dangerous, especially in this kind of weather. Plus, there was no way of knowing just how long he had been under the influence of the take over magic.

Natsu crouched down next to him. "Macao! Open your eyes!" This elicited no response. "Romeo's waiting for you, dammit!"

At that, the man's eyes fluttered, then opened, and Gray could see that Natsu was visibly relieved. "Damn," Macao groaned, scrubbing a hand over his face. He laughed self-deprecatingly. "I took out nineteen of them, but I got taken over by the last one. Pretty pathetic, huh?"

"That's still impressive," Gray said, before Natsu could respond. "And it's not pathetic to get caught off guard. We all are, sometimes."

The mage pushed himself into a sitting position. "Thanks, kid." Macao looked at Gray curiously. "Who're you?"

"Gray Fullbuster," he answered. "I'm new."

Something almost like puzzlement flashed over the other mage's face, and Gray swore he saw Macao's eyes flick between Natsu and himself. When he blinked again, though, Natsu was helping Macao up, and Gray decided he probably just imagined it.

Later, seeing the happiness light up Romeo's face as he tackled Macao into a hug that bowled him over, Gray found a smile creeping onto his face despite himself. Even after all these years, the loss of his family was a dull throbbing wound, but seeing others so happy made some of that pain ebb away. At least _they_ were still whole.

And, if the brawl earlier was any indication, clearly Fairy Tail mages were all a little bit crazy. But they were _happy_ too, full of laughter and a sense of companionship that Gray hadn't even realized he missed, nevermind needed.

He thought he could get used to this.

* * *

Natsu casually slid open Gray's window and hopped inside. He was even considerate enough to shut it after him.

Gray's scent wasn't fully imprinted in this apartment yet—he _had_ just moved in—and it still mostly smelled like plaster and newly-dried paint. Traces of the pine trees and freshly-fallen snow that was Gray's scent lingered, though, but they were all somewhat stale. The ice block wasn't home, then.

That was alright. Natsu could wait.

He peered through Gray's cupboards and grinned at the assortment of snacks. Well, most of them were nonperishables—what, did the Ice Princess think he needed to stockpile for a famine or something?—but they were pretty good regardless. He made sure to grab some canned tuna for Happy as well. They weren't as good as fresh fish, but if Happy ran out, they'd do in a pinch.

He made himself at home on Gray's new sofa, snacks in hand. It was pretty comfortable—Lucy had good taste. At least, he was _pretty_ sure it was Lucy who picked out most of this furniture; the Ice Block hadn't seemed particularly interested in filling up his apartment when Lucy had dragged him out furniture-shopping yesterday.

He was in the process of demolishing a bag of chips when he heard the sound of a key turning in the lock, and the front door opened to reveal Gray standing there. Natsu waved.

Gray's eyes narrowed. "What the _hell_ are you doing in my apartment?"

"Hey to you too, Ice Princess."

"You have five seconds to get _out_ before I freeze you where you are," Gray threatened.

"Ha, I'd like to see you try!" Natsu retorted, slipping into a fighting stance. Gray looked like he might attack for about two seconds, before the tension eased out of his frame. He shoved the door shut behind him and crossed the room to plop himself down in the armchair opposite Natsu.

Privately, Natsu was disappointed. Fighting Gray was exhilarating; the ice mage could match him blow for blow, ice shields barely faltering against his fire. The spar he'd had against him in the guild hall the day they joined, when he'd pulled Gray into the brawl, had been the most fun he'd had in _ages_.

...Even if they did end up kind of trashing the guild. He _really_ hoped Erza didn't catch wind of that. Not only because she was _scary_ when she was mad and Natsu didn't want to face her, but also because Gray had never met her before. Maybe Natsu should warn him about her?

Nah. Gray could figure it out himself. Actually, Natsu would _enjoy_ seeing Gray meet Erza.

"You're lucky I don't want to damage my new apartment," Gray grumbled. He eyed Natsu and Happy. "So why _are_ you two here anyway?"

"Form a team with us!" Natsu blurted before he could stop himself. Sure, he'd been _thinking_ of asking Gray to join his team despite it always having been just he and Happy for all these years—begrudgingly, he could admit to himself that the other mage was strong, and Natsu actually found himself liking him (not that he would _ever_ say that out loud)—but he hadn't actually meant to ask now. He'd just wanted to check out the other mage's place.

"Yeah!" Happy cheered, and Natsu absolutely could not take it back now.

Gray's brows furrowed. "A team?"

"Sometimes, guildmates band together—" Happy started.

Gray cut him off. "I know what a team is."

"Great, let's get going then!" Natsu leapt to his feet.

"Hold it, flamebrain. I haven't actually agreed yet," Gray said.

Natsu stared at him, before huffing. He supposed that was true. But he hadn't really considered Gray not agreeing. "Well, do you want to or not?"

"...Fine," Gray said. "Why not, I guess. There was a job I'd been planning on taking anyway, so we might as well."

He pulled a job flyer Natsu vaguely remembered seeing on the board but hadn't taken. He'd thought it too boring at the time. "Can't we do another one?" Natsu complained. "Getting a book is _boring_."

"Quit complaining," Gray said. "If you don't like it, you don't have to come."

Reluctantly, Natsu let it drop. They'd just have to take a more exciting job after this one. He glanced over at the actual details on the paper, stopping at the words "pervert" and "blonde maids." An idea popped into his head to get back at Gray. If they were going to do this, the least he could do was get some entertainment out of it, after all.

"It says here that he's hiring blond maids…" Natsu leaned in to pretend-whisper to Happy, though he kept his voice loud enough for Gray to overhear. "Let's get Gray to infiltrate the mansion disguised as a maid!"

Gray gave him an unimpressed look. "I am _not_ wearing a maid uniform. Or a blonde wig."

Too bad.

….At least they got to break into Duke Everlue's mansion instead. It was surprisingly easy, despite the Ice Princess insisting they be "subtle" and not letting him punch a hole in the wall. Or burn the whole mansion down. For someone who was so rich, Natsu thought, this Ever-whatsit guy sure could afford to spend more on better security.

They ended up breaking into a storeroom through a window, and spent the next couple of minutes checking the rooms on the second floor. "This is taking forever. Can't we just ask someone where the book is?" Natsu whined.

"The point is not to be seen, moron," Gray said. Natsu was about to snap back when he caught the faint sound of rumbling. Moments later, several maids burst out of the ground carrying brooms, led by one with pink hair. Natsu grinned. Finally! A fight!

He was soon disappointed though. All it took was one punch and the maids went down easily. On the plus side, the next door they tried led to a library, with row upon row of books.

Gray's eyes lit up at the sight, and Natsu wondered why. Did the ice mage really like reading that much? Somehow, he had a feeling that wasn't it. What was the Ice Princess hiding?

Now, he knew he wasn't exactly known for thinking things through—and for good reason; punching stuff was much more fun than agonizing over everything—but he realized he didn't really know much about Gray. The other mage hadn't told him anything about his past, his family, or why he was traveling alone in Hargeon.

Then again, Natsu probably shouldn't pry. Almost everyone in Fairy Tail had their secrets, after all—he _still_ didn't know Erza's past or why Cana got weird whenever he talked about Igneel (was it something to do with dragons? Or dads?). A lot of them were orphans, so family was a bit of a touchy subject. Just because _he_ was okay with talking about Igneel didn't mean the others were as forthcoming.

"We'll split up," Gray told him. "You and Happy take the left half and I'll take the right."

...Which book were they searching for again? Natsu hadn't really paid much attention when the client had been briefing them. Of course, he wasn't going to _admit_ that to Gray, so he wandered over to the shelf, pulling out random books that caught his eye. "A romance novel, a magic-thingy, a blue book, another book…"

"Ooh, an encyclopedia of fish!" Happy cheered.

Natsu could practically _hear_ the scowl in Gray's voice when he spoke. "Are either of you even taking this seriously?"

Natsu ignored him. He pulled out the next book that caught his eye, one that glittered in the lighting. "Oh hey, a golden book!"

Gray groaned in frustration. "At least _try_ to…" he cut himself off as he turned around and caught sight of the book Natsu was holding, the word _Daybreak_ emblazoned on its cover. "Huh, looks like you found it."

"Wait, seriously?" Natsu blinked in surprise. He hadn't _actually_ expected it to be that easy to find the book. Boring, sure, but even _he_ knew it'd be hard to find one book in a library this big. It was why he just wanted to burn the whole place down; it'd save them the trouble.

Well, that was certainly an easy two thousand Jewels. He wasn't complaining though; the sooner they finished this job, the sooner they could take a fun one… preferably before Erza came back from hers and found out about his new damage reports.

Natsu took immense satisfaction in lighting the book on fire. It was probably going to be the most fun he'd be getting on this job, after all.

Except, that wasn't really accurate because as soon as he'd burnt the book, the duke guy had appeared in a fit of rage and Natsu ended up getting to beat up two mercenaries he'd hired, who called themselves the Vanish Brothers or something, which Natsu personally thought was stupid. It wasn't as though they vanished or anything.

Apparently they were supposed to be hot stuff too. "They're from the Southern Wolves Mercenary Guild," Happy told them. He decided to trust his partner on this one; it wasn't as though _Natsu_ knew (or cared) who they were or where they came from.

So while Natsu left Gray to handle the Duke, he took care of the mercenaries. They ended up being pretty pathetic; he'd faced _much_ tougher opponents before.

"Watch it, idiot!" Gray snapped, Everlue frozen to the ground next to him. Dotting the area around them were several holes, and remembering Everlue's entrance in the library, Natsu guessed he practiced some sort of earth magic. "You almost hit us! And you overdid it _again_!" He gestured at the smoke billowing up from the newly-demolished wall.

Ah, oops. Maybe that _was_ a little overkill… But admitting that would mean admitting that Gray was right, so Natsu just crossed his arms and scowled.

Gray cursed, then, in an echo of the day they'd met, grabbed Natsu by the arm and dragged him out of the mansion via the missing wall, ignoring Duke-guy's enraged spluttering from behind them. "Hey!" Natsu protested.

"You just _destroyed Everlue's mansion. _Do you _want_ to be here when the Rune Knights show up and start making inquiries about the damages?"

Well, no, he didn't, but… "Don't tell me what to do, Snowflake!"

Gray rolled his eyes.

"You wanna start something?" Natsu was _itching_ for a proper fight; he figured it was the least Gray owed him for putting up with this job. Just then, Happy swooped out of the sky, clutching something golden in his paws. Natsu reluctantly backed off.

Gray smiled when he saw what Happy was carrying, and Natsu found himself curious about what it was. "You've got it?" Gray asked.

"Aye!" Happy dropped the gold thing in Gray's hand. Upon closer inspection, it was a key of sorts.

Natsu squinted at it. Wasn't that like Lucy's spirit keys? "Yes," Gray said, and Natsu started in surprise. He hadn't even realized he'd said anything out loud.

Gray suddenly veered down an alleyway, just as a battalion of Rune Knights streamed past the way they came. He kept speaking as though nothing had happened, explaining, "I saw it when I was fighting Everlue and figured Lucy would probably be a better holder than _him_."

"That's probably true," Natsu admitted, resigning himself to agreeing with Gray.

"Speaking of Everlue…" Gray started, glancing over at him. They slowed to a walk, confident that they were far enough from the mansion. The townspeople barely gave them a second glance. "Did you _have_ to burn _Daybreak_ right then and there? I'd have liked a chance to _read_ the book before you burned it to a crisp."

Natsu frowned. "Huh? Why'd you want to do that? Reading is _boring_."

"Forgive me for wanting to find out _why_ someone was willing to pay _two thousand Jewels_ for us to destroy a _book_," Gray said scathingly. "You don't find that suspicious at all?"

He shrugged. He'd never really thought to consider it, actually. His modus operandi was usually just follow the direction the client pointed at him, beat stuff up, job done. Of course, sometimes it got more complicated than that, but that was what Happy was for. What did it matter _why_ their client wanted them to destroy the book?

Their client's mansion, like the Duke's, was slightly separated from the main part of the town (Natsu thought it might be called Shiro-something. Shirosamu? No, wait, it was Shirotsume). It wasn't as big, obviously, but it was still elegant and quite obviously expensive.

The problem was, it smelled all wrong. Well, it wasn't that it was _wrong_, per se… more that everything smelled kind of empty, as though the house hadn't been inhabited for a while. The client and his wife's scents didn't linger in the corners like the way it should've, if this was _actually_ their home. In fact, it kind of smelled a little like Gray's apartment, too clean and new and not lived in.

Natsu would freely admit that he wasn't the smartest in Fairy Tail (that honor probably fell to Levy or Freed, or maybe Lucy), but he could definitely put the pieces together. Namely, that this wasn't their client's actual house, so they probably weren't as rich as they wanted to seem, especially if they went to all the trouble of renting a different property just for appearances' sake.

"Thank you!" Melon said gratefully, when they reported that they'd destroyed the book. He reached for a pocket of money sitting next to him. "I suppose you'll be wanting your payment then?"

Natsu made a split-second decision. It wouldn't be fair to take that much money if their clients weren't actually able to afford it—especially not now when the reward had been raised to _two million_. It wasn't like the job had been that hard, after all, and it didn't feel right to just accept two million from people who might be left struggling from it. It wasn't as though _Natsu_ was starving for money.

Besides, the reward being that high? It _reeked_ of desperation, and Natsu got the sense that it probably had something to do with their client's past, or maybe their family.

"Nah, you keep it," he said casually, folding his arms behind his head.

Melon looked startled. Gray glanced over at him in surprise, but he kept silent, seemingly trusting Natsu to know what he was doing. ...If Natsu was honest with himself, that trust warmed him. Just a little! It wasn't as though he _cared_ about what the Ice Block thought…

"You're sure?" Melon asked.

Natsu waved it off. "Yeah. C'mon guys, lets go home." He turned. "You too, Melon. Go back to your real home."

He left them standing in shock behind him.

"What was that about?" Gray asked, catching up to him. "Was there a reason you didn't accept the money?" He didn't seem angry, just a tad annoyed, but mostly curious. Natsu left it up to Happy to explain, since his partner knew him well enough to pick up on the little cues. Plus, Happy didn't have as strong a sense of smell as him, but even he would have picked up on the differences in smell.

Gray nodded when he finished. "Okay," he said simply, and left it at that.

Maybe the Ice Princess wasn't as annoying as he thought.

* * *

Of course, they got lost the next day, and Natsu immediately took that back. The ice jerk was _exacting_ as annoying as he thought. Just to spite him, Natsu refused to admit they were lost. He was sure Happy's nose would lead them back… eventually.

Gray threw up his hands in exasperation. "How did you even get lost in the first place? You _live_ in Magnolia—shouldn't you know how to get there? Actually, for that matter, why didn't we just take a train instead of _walking_ all the way from Shirotsume town?"

Natsu felt queasy just _thinking_ about trains. Yeah, he wasn't going to get on that death trap if he could avoid it. "Fuck you," he said, very eloquently.

Luckily, he spotted someone on the road ahead of them. It turned out to be Cana. ...He wasn't quite sure where he stood with Cana. Sure, she and Erza had been at the guild the longest, and he would fight for any of his guildmates, but the two of them had just never really clicked, especially since Cana's style was pretty different from his own, all evasion and tactics. They were friends, yes, but ultimately, Natsu had to admit that they didn't really interact as much as he did, with, say, Erza or Elfman, or even Mira and Lucy.

Certainly not as much as he had with Lisanna. And it had been over two years now, but it still _hurt_. She had been his best friend for years, ever since she and Mira and Elfman joined Fairy Tail. They'd hatched Happy together, and he still missed her.

The point was, Natsu didn't really _get_ Cana. But in the short days since he'd joined, Gray and Cana had gotten along really well. Natsu tried not to be jealous; it wasn't as though he had a monopoly on Gray, after all (even if he _had_ been the one to meet Gray first). Besides, he told himself, if Cana wanted the Ice Block, she could have him.

"Hey you two!" Cana said cheerfully, cards tucked away neatly in a blue pouch at her side. Unsurprisingly, she was carrying a bottle of alcohol in one hand, even though she was probably getting back from a job.

"Cana," Gray greeted. "Good thing we ran into you. Do you know where we are? This idiot," he jabbed a thumb in Natsu's direction; Natsu glared, "got us lost."

Cana took a swig of her drink. "These woods right here are a shortcut back to Magnolia." She gestured at the trees around them, practically pressing up against the dirt-trodden road they stood on.

"See?" Happy said. He stuck his nose in the air faux-primly. "I told you we were going the right way. You shouldn't have doubted my nose."

"Yeah, Popsicle," Natsu jumped in.

Cana watched them, a smirk playing on her lips as she said offhandedly, "You might want to head back soon; I heard Erza's on her way back from her job."

Natsu cringed. That sounded more like incentive to _not_ go back. Maybe if they dawdled long enough, Erza would leave on another job?

Gray tilted his head curiously. "You mean Titania Erza? Nicknamed the Queen of the Fairies?"

"That's the one," Cana affirmed.

"What's she like?"

Natsu shivered. "Scary."

"A demon," Happy agreed.

"Is she really that bad?" Gray asked, bemused. There was a hint of a smile tugging at his lips, and his eyes shone with mirth. Natsu scowled; the asshole was _laughing_ at them. Well, they'd see who got the last laugh when Gray met Erza. _Is she really that bad, _ha!

"Just wait until you meet her," Natsu said darkly.

It would be soon, too, Natsu thought gleefully. He couldn't wait.

* * *

**A/N: Oh my god, I absolutely **_**cannot**_ **do Happy. Half the time I forget he's even there, and the other half I don't know what to do with him, so he just keeps saying "Aye." Oops. **

**Also, thing is, I can't always swap Lucy into Gray's place (she isn't necessarily going to take the same jobs as him, especially since they have different strength levels), plus I wanted Gray to interact with different Fairy Tail members, so we get Cana instead! And she is **_**totally**_ **enjoying how Natsu's terrified of Erza. **

**And we get to see some of Natsu's point of view! I've decided I'm going to alternate between Natsu and Gray, though I'll probably stick with Gray more if only because I have a better grasp of his character, if not necessarily his voice. **

**Also, I feel like Fairy Tail would be a bit overwhelming at first for anybody, not just Lucy, so we have a bit of "what the hell is this, everyone is crazy" from Gray. **

**The fight scenes are a bit shorter this time around, because, well, not to bash Lucy or anything—she's great, even if she's not my favorite—but fighting-wise, she's quite a bit weaker than the rest of Team Natsu (Happy not included). I'm pretty sure most of the Tenrou Team/Fairy Tail's main cast is stronger than she is, actually. So since it's Gray who's doing the fighting and not Lucy, the opponents seem a bit weaker (especially considering these were the opponents Natsu could literally one-shot if he wanted to).**

**Gray's stripping habit is explained, too. Like, I know that the whole thing is pretty integral to canon!Gray's character, but I chose to tone it down a little, since i'm not a huge fan of him stripping every other minute. Basically, I figured that since this Gray was traveling by himself and pursuing leads to Iced Shell, he probably wouldn't want to draw as much attention to himself, whereas Canon!Gray didn't have to worry about that since he was a Fairy Tail mage, and he knew they would have his back should anything go amiss (like, say, being arrested for public indecency). Plus, I always figured the stripping habit was something he _could_ have trained himself out of but didn't, because it was a piece of Ur, a reminder of her training, if that makes any sense. **

**If I'm honest, I'm not too happy with this ending; it feels way too rushed. But I really had no clue how to end it, so I just decided to break it off there. **

**As always, please leave a review and let me know what you think! All feedback is welcome.**

**~ Silver Snowblossom**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: First chapter of Lullabye! I'd honestly intended to put Lullabye all in one chapter, but it got a bit long so I split it up. Right now, it's at two chapters, so hopefully it'd stay that way. **

**I wasn't very happy with the first bit and I rewrote it several times, before deciding just to cut it out entirely. That might be why the beginning of this chapter is a bit choppy. I really meant to gloss over the train scenes since they're pretty much the same, but I guess that's what happens when I rewatch Lullabye while writing this. Oops. So yeah, everything here is pretty close to canon, since it's the setup to the main confrontation; major changes are **_**next**_ **chapter. **

* * *

**...**

**_though the stars walk backward_**

**_._**

**_Chapter 3_**

**...**

* * *

Gray was admittedly nervous about meeting Erza after seeing Natsu's reaction to Cana even _mentioning_ her name. The fact that she had marched into the guildhall effortlessly bearing a monster horn taller than she was did nothing to dissuade that.

Nor did the fact that the first thing she did when she walked in was tear into everyone. She was, he decided, exactly as scary as they'd made her out to be.

He was as surprised as everyone else when she asked Natsu for help—powerful as she was (and she _was_ strong; he could tell that much, even without having known her for as long as the rest of his guildmates), why would she need it? He wondered how serious this "rumor" was, if it had her that concerned.

Next to him, Natsu groaned pitifully, facedown on the table. "I'm dead," Natsu whimpered. "Erza's going to drag me off and murder me."

Gray took a moment to bask in Natsu's suffering. Ah, sweet, sweet schadenfreude. "Good luck," he offered cheerfully.

"Bastard," Natsu returned, picking his head up off of the table to glare at him.

"Actually, Gray, why don't you go with Natsu and Erza tomorrow?" Mira said thoughtfully. "Since you and Natsu already are a team and all."

Gray stared at her. She wasn't serious was she? Him? On the same team as _Natsu-let's-burn-everything-to-a-crisp Dragneel_ and _Titania Erza_? He didn't even _want_ to think about the amount of destruction that would cause, especially since he was well aware that he himself didn't exactly have the best self-restraint either.

"I think that's a good idea," Lucy said.

He crossed his arms. "Hell no. I am _not_ dealing with Natsu and Erza in the same space on my own." ...Although, he was pretty sure Natsu would drag him along anyway. In which case, maybe it would be better to go along with it gracefully. But his point still stood—there was no way he was going to handle the both of them by himself. He added, "If I'm going, you are too."

Lucy looked like she wanted to protest, eyes flicking between Erza and Natsu, before she sighed. "Fair enough, I suppose."

"I think you'd all make a great team," Mira said brightly, with that seemingly ceaseless optimism and cheer. Gray eyed her dubiously. He had his doubts. Maybe it would work, but only if they didn't kill each other in the process.

…Which was more likely to happen than not. Damn it.

* * *

The second time Gray ran into Erza was a complete accident. He'd just been taking a walk along the river, trying to familiarize himself with Magnolia (he still wasn't used to staying in one place this long, wasn't used to having a permanent place to call _home_, not since Deliora happened), when he spotted a figure on its banks a couple feet away, the sunset painting their hair red. It was only when he drew closer to them that he realized who it was.

Erza was sitting cross-legged on the ground (which _had_ to be uncomfortable in that armor; then again, he supposed she was probably used to it), a distant and, dare he say it, lost look in her eyes. The air was hushed and still save for the occasional birdcalls, and he felt oddly as though he were intruding on something.

In this light, he thought, Erza didn't look scary, just a little sad and lonely.

Gray must've made a sound—or maybe she just heard his footsteps—because Erza whipped around, a sword materializing in her hand faster than he could blink. All of her vulnerability vanished in an instant, defenses slamming back into place, and the transformation was… startling.

_How much of herself does she hide away_? he wondered, remembering the dressing-downs and criticism she'd doled out upon walking into the guild. How much of that was just a defense mechanism, a way for her to stay in control? How much of that was a way to hold everyone at a distance?

After all, he knew a thing or two of locking his heart away, of hiding the pain.

Erza relaxed, ever so slightly, when she saw him, though her eyes remained guarded. "Oh, it's you," she commented.

He shifted uncomfortably, hesitated. "Sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you. ...I can leave if you want."

"That's quite alright," she said, sword vanishing as quickly as it came. "Sorry, what's your name? I believe I saw you earlier this afternoon."

"Yeah. I'm Gray; I'm new here."

"A pleasure to meet you."

He eyed her, stopped, before he huffed out a breath. He might as well; he was never one for shying away from confrontation. Still, he didn't really know her, and he had no way of knowing if she was going to bite his head off for it. "Is something wrong?" he asked tentatively. "You seem a bit sad."

"I'm fine," she said, the same way he did on the days when the past bubbled up to the surface, when he wasn't quite all there, when the grief was so thick he could _choke_. _I'm fine_. Two words, but such a lie.

He wondered who she'd lost, whose ghosts lurked in her eyes. But it wasn't his place to pry, not really, not when he'd known her for all of a few hours, and when they had barely exchanged a handful of words. He doubted she would answer anyway.

He deliberated, then dropped himself rather unceremoniously to the ground, but remained poised to leave if it made her uncomfortable. Sometimes when it felt as though the world was closing in, when he felt suffocated by the weight of his mistakes, he just wanted to be left alone, to find a quiet place to piece himself back together. Other times, the reminder that someone was there helped—not that that happened often, travelling alone as he did, but still.

"What are you doing?" Erza asked, but it lacked the fire from when he first met her earlier. She mostly just sounded a little tired, weary. It was odd, and it really didn't fit the image of the strong, confident Queen of the Fairies. Maybe that was why she was out here alone.

Gray wondered if Natsu or the rest of Fairy Tail had ever seen this side of Erza. He doubted she would have let them. As it was, he was surprised she wasn't defensive over _him_ stumbling upon her like this.

Erza struck him as the type who wouldn't appreciate pity, who was hesitant to accept help and certainly never asked for it. Kind of like him, in that way. He'd never been fond of overwhelming sympathy—it felt all too much like he was being patronized, in a way, even though he knew people usually meant well. (And it only served to underscore his weakness. He never wanted to be helpless again, not like with Deliora. And everything went back to the demon, didn't it? His life could be separated into two segments: Before Deliora, and After; Deliora had changed _everything_.)

Gray doubted Erza would appreciate him telling her he was keeping her company any more than he himself would. She'd probably just see it as pity.

Instead, he hummed noncommittally, lifting his head to stare at the sunset. "The view's pretty from here, isn't it?"

"Yes, I suppose." To his surprise, she added, "It used to be my favorite place when I was younger. The sunset was always beautiful." She smirked, and some of the light returned to her eyes. "I used to spar with Natsu here." By which she probably meant "pound him into the dirt."

"He does make a rather useful punching bag, doesn't he?" Gray asked lightly, humor bleeding into his voice.

Erza laughed, and privately, Gray took pride in the accomplishment. At least the emptiness was gone now. He might not have known the Queen of the Fairies well, but it still struck him as _wrong_.

"Yes," she agreed.

They lapsed into surprisingly comfortable silence. It was… nice, he supposed, to be able to bask in the peace after being on a team with Natsu and Happy for the past few days. Natsu wasn't exactly a _chatterbox_, per se, but he wasn't quiet either. And if Natsu wasn't talking, Happy was. Neither of them seem to like the quiet much, which, well, Gray hadn't expected them to.

She tilted her head to look at him, mischievous amusement glinting in her eyes. "Did Happy ever tell you about the time Natsu knocked himself out with his own fire?"

Gray leaned forward in interest at the potential ammunition to tease Natsu with later. "No," he said. "Do tell."

Erza took a deep breath and began recounting the story.

* * *

The next day, Erza didn't bring the last night up, just greeted him with a cursory nod. He didn't bring it up either. Although, now that Gray knew her better, he could see the glimmer of warmth in her eyes. There was a flicker of surprise at seeing him too, though not as much as he'd expected. Ah, Lucy was probably already here then. "I take it Natsu is dragging you along?" she asked.

Gray nodded with a wry smile. "I figured it was easier just to not resist."

She reached over to clap him on the back, and he fought not to wince at the impact. "Glad to have you with us."

Lucy was indeed already here, like she promised she'd be, sitting on a bench and watching Natsu and Happy, who were bickering about something, Natsu gesticulating wildly and Happy fluttering in the air next to him. Knowing Happy, it was probably fish.

Gray glanced in Erza's direction again, only to do a double-take as he took in the impressive stack of luggage. Considering the mountain of stuff was probably twice as tall as Erza herself, he felt it was wholly justified. Then, remembering the massive monster horn she'd brought back yesterday, he wondered if she was always that… excessive.

Honestly, was all that stuff really necessary? He doubted they'd be gone for more than a day, or maybe two, tops. Of course, he didn't say any of that to her face. No matter how they'd struck up a tentative friendship last night, he didn't have a death wish.

Lucy had no such reservations. "That's a _lot_ of baggage!" she said, boggled. Understatement of the century, Gray thought. Shouldn't Lucy be used to it, though? Or had she never gone on jobs with Erza in the past? Come think of it, maybe that was why she'd been slightly reluctant to do it when he'd brought it up…

"Erza!" Natsu broke in. "I have a condition for coming along." Oh dear. What was Natsu doing?

"Oh?" Erza said, half-turning. "What is it?"

"When we get back, fight me!" he demanded. Gray sighed. He didn't know why he'd expected anything different. This was _Natsu_ after all.

Well, if he had a death wish, then so be it. His funeral.

"Very well." A flash of amusement and challenge in Erza's eyes. "I accept."

"Alright!" Natsu cheered. "I'm all fired up!"

Gray was pretty sure Natsu would soon regret that.

"Not that this isn't interesting and all," Lucy started, eyes fixed on the train. "But we're going to miss our train if we don't board soon. It looks like it's about to pull out."

Gray twisted around, saw she was right, and cursed. It was a mad scramble, all of them rushing to get on the train in time (save for Natsu, who seemed to be trying to delay as long as possible—at least, until Erza bodily dragged him onto it). Gray _still_ didn't know how Erza got all her luggage on the train in time.

Even so, they almost missed it, Erza and Natsu barely pulling themselves on the train just as it began moving out the station.

But soon, they were situated, Lucy and Erza sitting across from him, Happy, and Natsu (which, could Gray swap with either of the girls? Knowing Natsu's motion sickness, he'd rather not be puked on, thanks. Actually, on second thought, he wouldn't wish it on them either. At least Natsu was in the aisle seat?), watching the countryside fly by.

Gray felt a little bad—just a little—about Natsu's motion sickness, but it wasn't bad enough to make him feel guilty about poking fun at his misery.

Erza had an entirely different reaction (or was it a solution?) to Natsu's motion sickness. Swapping seats with Gray, she proceeded to knock him out. Gray winced a little in sympathy; that looked like a pretty hard hit, and knowing Erza's strength (and how hard her armor was), he wouldn't be surprised if it left a bruise.

Lucy was the one to broach the topic they were all thinking. "So, uh, what's going on Erza? What are we trying to do?"

"Our target's the dark guild Eisenwald," Erza said. "I believe they're planning to do something with a magic called 'Lullabye.'"

Lullabye. Gray remembered that ragtag group he, Cana, and Natsu had run into after their job the other day, the ones who'd tried to eat Happy. They'd mentioned Lullabye, too… which meant they were probably Einsenwalders.

But they'd seemed desperate, _had_ to be if they were planning on eating _Happy_, so—not current members, then. Deserters, probably, and Gray had to wonder just how bad this plan was that they'd even _try_ to leave Einsenwald—dark guilds were notorious for being particularly unkind to those who left. This group, it seemed, was no exception.

On the whole, they'd been pretty weak, so much so that it'd barely taken a matter a minutes to wipe them all out and tie them up. But Gray wasn't foolish enough to believe that that was any indication of Einsenwald's strength. He remembered the shadow mage, and how he'd easily recaptured the whole group right from under their noses and vanished before they could even process it. Fast, and skilled, too, to manipulate his magic across such a range.

"One of them uses shadow magic," he offered. At Erza and Lucy's looks of surprise, he explained with a shrug, "Natsu and I ran into them the other day, after our job. They tried to eat Happy."

"_Eat_ Happy—?" Lucy exclaimed, startled. Reflexively, she glanced down at where Happy sat, perched next to her on the train seat, and relaxed. She shook her head, refocusing on the topic at hand. "What could they possibly be planning?" she mused.

"Well…" Briefly, Erza explained what she'd overhead in Onibas when she was on her way back from her own job, about the seal and the group of mages she'd heard talking about Lullabye.

That just raised the danger level several notches. Few magics were dangerous enough to be sealed away, and fewer still with one as strong as the one the Einsenwalders had made it out to be. He'd run into a couple, when he'd been researching Deliora and Iced Shell, but they were few and far between, and most were just barely mentioned, in the margins of an old tome or in a throwaway line in an ancient journal.

Most magic sealed away had to do with that tampering with life and death—with the Black Mage, Zeref. Maybe this wasn't the case here, with Lullabye, but Gray doubted it. They wouldn't be that lucky.

Lullabye… it sounded familiar, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He'd definitely come across it before, probably in his research.

"I made an error," Erza said fiercely. "I should've forced them to suffer and tell me their plans."

"I doubt they would've been told much," Lucy said reasonably. "The only person who seems in the know was that Kageyama."

"It doesn't matter anyway. Whether we know their plan or not, it's definitely something malicious, so we'll have to stop them either way," Gray said.

"You think the Einsenwalders are still in Onibas?" Lucy asked as the train pulled into the station.

"I don't know. But I intend to find out." Erza rose as the train came to a stop, barely swaying at the arrested motion. "Come, we have no time to waste."

As they stepped off the train, dragging Erza's massive amounts of luggage behind them, Gray couldn't ignore the niggling thought that they were forgetting something. He did a headcount. Lucy, Happy, Erza… Natsu.

Shit. Gray swiveled around just in time in time to see the train speed away, chugging merrily. "We left Natsu on the train," he groaned.

Damn it. He should've remembered to drag Natsu with them, especially since his motion sickness made it unlikely he'd be able to leave the train himself.

But… it'd been a while since he'd traveled with a group, nevermind one he was friends with, and he'd forgotten, it seemed, to look after the whole team. He was too used to just watching himself after all these years scouring the country on his own. At this point, train stations were practically a second home (and maybe it _had_ become his home, before Natsu and Fairy Tail and Magnolia).

Happy, though, merely waved after the train, unconcerned, and Gray got the sense that this sort of thing was common for the pair. If so, he wondered how they got anywhere. Or why they even took trains at all.

Dismay flickered across Erza's face, but Gray cut her off before she could begin apologizing or take the blame all on her shoulders, like he could see she was about to do. They didn't have time for that. "We should catch up to the train," he said. "Or—what station is the train headed for next?"

Lucy hummed thoughtfully, eyes darting across the platform to land on the list detailing train destinations. "Kunugi Station, I believe. I doubt it's their end destination, though. Kunugi's pretty out of the way."

If they were going to go after the train, there were few ways to keep up, especially when it was already ahead of them. Certainly, _walking_ wasn't going to work. There weren't any trains going that way for a while, either, not when the train _just_ left. Erza apparently had the same thought as him. "We'll need to borrow a magic-powered vehicle."

Gray nodded. "That'll be one of the only ways for us to catch the train. And the fastest way to reach the next station, too."

It was… easier than he expected, for them to rent a magic four-wheeler. Cheaper, too. In just a few minutes they were underway, Erza at the front and him perched on the roof. With how much magic Erza was pumping into the SE plug, it didn't take too long for them to catch up to the train.

Just as they pulled up beside it, an explosion rocked the train, metal and debris flying everywhere and smoke billowing out from one of the cars. _Definitely Natsu's fault_, he thought. A few moments later, the aforementioned mage flung himself out of the train. Gray had a scarce few seconds to brace for impact before they collided, the force of Natsu's momentum knocking him off the roof of the vehicle.

The impact was jarring; crashing full-force into the ground _hurt_. Not debilitating, of course, and nothing he couldn't ignore—just a few more bruises—but still. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the magic mobile screech to a halt, Erza leaping down from it almost before it'd stopped, with Lucy following a few seconds after.

"Natsu, it's good to see you're alright," Erza said, crushing Natsu into a hug. Natsu's head slammed painfully into her chestplate—her very tough _metal_ chestplate—and Gray hid a wince. If Natsu didn't have a concussion before from the fall, he wouldn't be surprised if he had one now.

"Did something happen?" Lucy asked. "Given… the explosion and all."

Natsu rubbed at the back of his head, and said, with what would've been a sheepish smile if Gray hadn't known him, "I just got into a fight with some weird guy on the train. I think he might've been the one who grabbed those Happy-eaters the other day."

Gray's eyes sharpened. "You mean the shadow mage?"

"The one from Eisenwald?" Lucy asked, clearly catching on to his train of thought.

"Yeah, he said he was part of Eisenwald—" Natsu was sent flying for the second time that day, courtesy of Erza.

"You idiot! Eisenwald's who we're after! Why did you let him get away?"

Natsu's expression of utmost confusion was almost comical. "Huh? This is the first I've heard of it."

"I explained _everything_ on the train; you should _listen_ when people are talking to you."

Gray broke in, deciding to save Natsu from Erza's fury. Funny as it was to watch, they _were _on a time limit. "Did the shadow guy have anything on him?" If he was a part of Eisenwald, then it stood to reason that he might've had Lullabye on him. If they could get any indication of what it looked like or what it did…

"He _did_ have this strange flute-thing. It was shaped like a skull, only it had three-eyes."

A flute. A three-eyed flute called Lullabye…

"Oh." The pieces clicked into place.

"You know what it is?"

He swallowed, shifted, because it was one thing to _think_ one of Zeref's magics might've been in play, but wholly another to _know_ so. Especially when his last encounter with one of the Black Mage's demons… didn't go so well (if by that, he meant completely upended his life). Lullabye was actually one of Zeref's weaker demons, as far as power went. That didn't make it any less deadly, though, not when all one had to do was _hear_ its melody to be killed.

At least he knew what it was, though. It would've been so much worse it they'd tried to waltz in and stop Eisenwald completely unprepared.

"The cursed song—the demon flute, Lullabye. It's one of the Black Mage Zeref's demons," he explained. He'd done his research on Zeref and his demons, after Deliora, and he'd never been so glad to have done so. He remembered the mention of it in a tome discussing Zeref's earlier feats, one of his first attempts to meddle with the border between life and death, and he tried to cast his mind back to what it'd said. Difficult—his memory was a little hazy given how long ago it was—but it came to him. "It used to be a medium to cast death magic. Then Zeref got his hands on it and turned it into something deadlier—a flute that kills all who hears the sound of its music."

Lucy turned pale. "A spell of mass-death? That's… that's _awful_." Understatement of the century, Gray thought grimly.

Sometime in the time they'd been talking, Erza had restarted the magic four-wheeler, and she pulled up beside them now, eyes alight in steel-edged determination, cold and fierce and burning.

"Get in," she said. "We're going after that train."

* * *

Catching up to the Eisenwalders was the easy part. The people at Kunugi station, shaken up and trembling, had been very helpful in that regard, regardless of the fact that they hadn't even known they were there.

Eisenwald had hijacked a train, which was odd, because trains were incredibly limited, could only travel along its rails. "It's fast though," Lucy pointed out, which, Gray conceded was true. It meant that Eisenwald's destination was somewhere reachable by train, so at least they wouldn't have to trek through the countryside to find them. It helped narrow down their possible target destinations, if not by much. It meant they'd be able to find them so long as they followed the rails, which _was_ pretty helpful.

It was frustrating, though; they knew what Lullabye was, now, but not what Eisenwald was planning to do with it. Well, there wasn't much _to_ do with it besides orchestrating mass-murder, but Gray would feel better if they only knew who the _targets_ of the dark guild's plots were.

"They've taken over the Oshibana station," Erza told them as they raced through its halls. It was all high-columns and smooth marble, grand and cold and imposing, and for all that he traveled, this wasn't a station he was familiar with. He'd been in Oshibana maybe once or twice, passing through, but there was nothing of interest, nothing to help him in his search, so he hadn't stopped. He kind of regretted that now; it meant he didn't know the layout, which was dangerous when their opponents had time to set things up beforehand. It was a disadvantage, one he wasn't sure they could afford. "The military's sent in a platoon, but they haven't come back yet. We should assume that they have engaged the dark mages in combat."

"Unsurprising," he noted. "Rune Knights are the only branch of the military that uses magic, and without magic…"

"It would be nearly impossible for them to beat Eisenwald, practitioners of it. A platoon of ordinary soldiers wouldn't have stood a chance," Lucy finished.

"Exactly."

They rounded the corner, only to be met by the sight of the soldiers sprawled across the flight of stairs. Unconscious, from the looks of it, not dead. Small mercies. It didn't feel right, just leaving them there, but there was little they could do at the moment.

"They've all been wiped out," Lucy murmured, steps light, a trace of uncertainty to them.

More unconscious bodies lined the hall leading to high-domed boarding platform, and a voice rang out the moment the crossed the threshold, interspaced with cackling laughter. "I knew you'd come, Fairy Tail_ flies_."

That was Erigor then. Tattoos curled over his upper body, the blue a contrast to the black cape he wore. Silver glinted off the razor-sharp edge of his scythe. Shinigami, indeed.

While Erza engaged Erigor—hopefully she could pry some information out of him—Gray turned his attention back to Lucy and Natsu. "Is he _still_ not recovered from his motion sickness yet?"

Lucy shook her head. "I guess we'll just have to do this without him for now."

Just as she said that, Natsu stirred a little, eyes opening. Gray huffed. "Get up, idiot. We have work to do."

Erza's voice, dangerously low, cut through the air, sharp as a knife. "You plan on broadcasting Lullabye across the entire city? You would murder countless innocents?"

Erigor smirked, and when he spoke, it was slow and amused, like this was all a game to him. "A purge, of all those ignorant fools, safe and sound and completely uncaring of those who've had their rights stripped away."

What did they have to gain from taking over a random station, from killing ordinary citizens? They _could've_ been trying to make a statement, but something about that didn't seem right. No, something else had to be at play here. But there was no time to think, only to react. Besides, whether Eisenwald actually intended to broadcast Lullabye over the speakers or not, they couldn't risk it. They'd need to stop them either way.

"Too bad for you," another Eisenwalder was saying, "you won't be seeing the new dark age because you're heading for the afterlife!" That was all the warning they had before shadowy tendrils whipped at them (the shadow mage, then). Gray steadied himself, hands already fluttering in the familiar motions of an ice shield—only it was unnecessary, because the tendrils were easily batted aside by flames long before they reached them.

So Natsu was finally up. The dragonslayer cracked his knuckles. "This is going to be _fun_."

Gray blinked, and… was Erigor _flying_? Wind magic, probably, which seemed a pretty cool skill to have. He found himself wondering if he could possibly replicate it with ice make—perhaps ice wings. He shook himself. _Focus_. Now was not the time for this.

"I'll leave this to the rest of you," Erigor announced, then vanished.

"Natsu, Gray," Erza ordered, "go after him. Lucy and I will take care of the rest of the guild."

"Got it." Gray was moving almost before she'd finished speaking, Natsu hot on his heels. Lucy's call of "Open: Gate of the Crab!" echoed behind them.

As they ran, Natsu let out a constant litany of complaints about Erza, which shouldn't have been as amusing as it was. It sounded like the dragonslayer knew her pretty well; it made sense, considering both of them had been part of Fairy Tail for a long time—years, it sounded like (and Gray wondered just what could have made Erza join so young; she couldn't have been more than ten or eleven, from the sounds of it).

Gray skidded to a halt at the first intersection. No sign of Erigor, and no way of knowing where he went. "We're going to have to split up," he said, starting down the right hallway. "Don't die!" he tossed over his shoulder.

Natsu made a deeply offended sound at that, and Gray laughed quietly. Natsu would be fine.

A glance to the right, caught on one of the speakers half-hidden in the corner. That was right; Onibas had a speaker system, for announcements and such—if Erigor was planning to broadcast Lullabye, it made sense that he'd need access to it. If Gray could find the control room for it, that'd be where he _should _find Erigor.

Luck was on his side for once. He turned the corner, and the third door down on the left side was clearly marked "Studio."

He studied the door. It was wood, not as sturdy as metal would've been. No way of telling if it was locked or not, so in the interest of time… He kicked the door open—didn't shatter it, he wasn't _Natsu_—but he might've put a little _too_ much force behind the blow because it went flying off the hinges, crashing into the ground just right of the doorway.

The lights were off; that was the first thing he noticed. Only a small square was lit, from where the lights from the hall flooded the room through the now-open doorway. The rest of the room was drowned in shadows, the pale light tossing hues of purple and gray over everything.

The second… "It's empty," he said in surprise. He'd expected to find Erigor and Lullabye here, and it was disconcerting to be so wrong. "Maybe I was wrong about them planning to use the speakers to broadcast Lullabye."

But… perhaps he _had_ been mistaken, but if not from here, then how _did_ Eisenwald plan on broadcasting Lullabye's melody?

Unless that wasn't his goal at all.

A worm of unease coiled in his gut. He _had_ found it odd, earlier, that Erigor's master plan was seemingly just to kill a bunch of innocents… but what if that wasn't it? Maybe he just _meant_ for them to think that, to trick them into chasing shadows that didn't exist, to distract them from his _real _targets. He had the sinking suspicion that if he were to check, he wouldn't find Erigor anywhere in the station. It was a decoy.

But then who _would_ he be targeting? Eisenwald was a dark guild, and from Erigor's half-mad speech earlier, he thought Lullabye could give them revenge, power. But Lullabye's only ability was to _kill_—so who did he think they could gain power from killing?

He sensed the other mage about a half-second before he attacked. He threw himself out of the way just as twisting black cables slammed into the floor where he'd just been standing.

The attack had come from above him; an Eisenwalder was on the ceiling, dangling from more of his black cords. Not empty after all, it seemed.

"Good guess," the dark mage said. "But our plan isn't so simple as that."

So he was right. "Then tell me what it _is_," Gray returned, made it sharp and confident, "and you won't get hurt."

In answer, the dark mage lunged. So be it. A quick ice shield blocked the other mage's… what did he call it, again? Urumi or something? Another flick of his wrist froze the dark mage to the ground. "Last chance," Gray warned. "Tell me what you're planning, if it's not to broadcast Lullabye over the PA system."

The Eisenwalder laughed. It wasn't a kind sound. "Erigor's wind wall should be in place by now." Gray froze. A wind wall… He might not have ever seen it before, but he could certainly guess what it was, and what it was meant to do, just from the name alone. So Eisenwald hadn't actually been aiming to take over this station at all—it was just a trap for Fairy Tail. And they walked right into it.

"So if you're not targeting this station, who _are_ you targeting?" he asked, and he wasn't Natsu, didn't burn with anger; his was a cold thing, freezing as the ice his magic made (he knew himself; he wasn't _loud_ when he was angry; sarcasm and ripostes and verbal sparring like with Natsu were merely in jest, sometimes annoyance—_this_ was anger), and it was a simple matter to slip a thread of that rage into his voice at the thought that these people were willing to _kill_, for no reason other than they could.

Maybe the dark mage could sense that anger, see the danger. Or maybe he was overconfident, believed that there was nothing to lose with answering, not when everyone here was trapped in the station and Fairy Tail wouldn't be able to stop them. Either way, Gray was pretty sure the Eisenwalder was telling the truth when he replied, "We were only taking this station to block the route to Clover."

_Clover_. Why Clover? There had to be something significant about that town if Erigor and Eisenwald were targeting it, but for the life of him, he couldn't see _what_. Clover was quiet, unassuming. Its only distinct features were its lovely scenery and… the guild masters' meeting hall.

_Oh_. The guild masters were meeting in Clover, this very day if he remembered correctly. _The Master's away at a conference_, Mira had said yesterday when Erza asked. Eisenwald was targeting the guild masters; Gray was _sure_ of it.

And maybe Gray didn't know the Master as well as Natsu or Erza or Lucy did and barely knew the other Masters at all, but—

Eisenwald had to be stopped. Not only because they would be murdering possibly dozens of people, but also because this, targeting the guild masters, would _cripple _Fiore's magic guilds and the country along with it.

Fiore'd always been too dependent on its guilds for its own good.

* * *

**A/N: So the Gray & Erza river scene still happens! (If a bit differently.) I thought that might be a good way to start to solidify their friendship, so. This wasn't really my favorite chapter, but hopefully we'll get to all the fun stuff in the next one. **

**The beginning part is a bit stilted, but I wasn't sure how to wrangle Lucy onto Team Natsu—I don't think Erza would've asked for her help, like she did Natsu and Canon!Gray, and canon!Lucy only really tagged along because Mira asked her to. So I decided to have Gray drag Lucy along in the interests of preserving his own sanity. **

**I kinda feel like everything goes back to Deliora when it comes to Gray. Iced Shell and his past are a bit closer to the surface for this Gray than the canon one, you know, with him still searching for a way to undo it and all. **

**As always, please leave a review!  
~ Silver Snowblossom**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Second and final chapter of Lullabye. Galuna's next. This… ended up being a lot more angsty-ish than I'd intended, but really, I don't think it's all that unreasonable for Gray to be reminded of Deliora when facing Lullabye, since they're, y'know, giant, towering demons of Zeref and all. Poor Gray.**

**Fun fact: I typed this up in two sittings, instead of in bits and pieces like I usually do, and now my muscles are staging mutiny. XD**

* * *

**...**

_**though the stars walk backward**_

_**.**_

_**Chapter 4**_

**...**

* * *

Gray found Erza and Lucy waiting for him when he finally emerged from the station, both of them tense and surrounded by defeated Eisenwalders. Quickly, he relayed what he'd learned about Eisenwald's plan and Clover. "What?" Erza demanded. She looked furious, stalking back and forth in front of the wind wall, metal clinking as armored fists clenched and unclenched. Maybe Gray didn't know her well, had just met her the day before, but he could read the worry written in every line of her body, and he was abruptly reminded that she'd known the Master for _years_, that he might've been the closest thing she had to a parent, a guardian. Yeah, he could see why she'd be low-key panicking right now—or as close as _Titania Erza_ got to panicking, anyway. Eisenwald might not have been a threat on their own, but Lullabye, on the other hand… Lullabye posed a very real danger to the guild masters, especially if they weren't expecting Erigor, weren't on their guard.

"Where's Natsu? I thought I told the two of you to stick together."

"He's still inside, I think. We split up a while back." He was probably in a fight too, judging by the various explosions he heard from somewhere within the building. For a few seconds, he entertained the thought of going over and helping him, but he dismissed it. Natsu could handle himself; they had something else to worry about right now. Namely…

"How are we going to get past the wind wall?" Lucy asked worriedly.

Erigor's wind wall was… impressive, much as he hated it, and he wondered how much magic it took to put up such a powerful and large wall. As far as he could tell, it stretched around the whole station and had to be at least twenty or thirty feet high, built of razor-sharp wind. He flicked a piece of ice into the wall and watched as it was not only pushed back almost immediately, but also shredded into little shards. He shuddered to think what that might've done to their much softer bodies.

So. Brute force wasn't an option, then. They wouldn't be able to force their way through, at least not without sustaining considerable injury. From the scrapes and dents on Erza's armor, it looked like she'd already tried.

"Is your arm alright?" he asked in concern. It dangled limply to her side, Erza's other arm clutching it tightly.

"Don't worry about me. I will be fine. Our priority is getting through the wall." Gray made a mental note to keep an eye on it later, and get her checked out by a healer—Did Fairy Tail have any healers? Something to think about.

Gray studied the wall, considering their options. Forcing their way through was a non-option, and the wind wall was more a dome than a wall, covering the sky above them as well, so Happy couldn't fly them out either. That meant their only options were to somehow break down the wall, or get around it.

Briefly, Gray considered finding one of the Eisenwalders, see if maybe one of them could break the wind barrier. Maybe that Kageyama guy—Erza _had_ mentioned that he was the one to break Lullabye's seal He dismissed the thought. It would, in all likelihood, take too long, especially since he doubted they would willingly cooperate, and it was time they didn't have.

But…

"What about Virgo's key?" Gray suggested. He was fairly certain he remembered her using some earth-type magic from his fight with Everlue, and therefore it stood to reason that Lucy could too. He'd handed the key to her yesterday afternoon, before he'd left the guild and run into Erza, to a flood of profuse gratitude. That should've been plenty of time for her to set up a contract or whatever it was Celestial mages did, right?

Lucy lit up. "Oh yeah…" She swept up the key. "Open, Gate of the Maiden: Virgo!" There was a flash and Gray could've sworn he heard the soft chime of bells, and a pink-haired girl appeared. Gray blinked in surprise. That… was very different from the gorilla of a woman he remembered seeing Virgo as at Everlue's. He elected not to bring it up; it really didn't matter, he supposed, so long as she still had the same abilities.

Virgo bowed. "How might I serve you, Princess?"

"Hey Virgo, could you dig us a way out of this station?"

"Of course." Virgo seemed about to do just that when Erza stopped her.

"We need to wait for Natsu. It would be best not to leave him behind again."

"Should we go find him?"

Erza regarded him thoughtfully for a few seconds before shaking her head. "No, he'll know to find us. And with his sense of smell, it shouldn't be difficult." Gray wasn't sure that was a good idea, acutely aware that every second they spent here was a second less they had to stop Erigor before he got to Clover, but… Erza was right; Natsu would find them faster than they could find him.

Sure enough, as though summoned by her words, Natsu turned up, slightly worse for the wear but grinning.

"You sure took your sweet time," Gray snarked.

Natsu dropped his grin and scowled. "Shut it, Ice Princess."

"Yeah? Dark mages give you trouble?"

Natsu bristled. "Of course not! I'll have you know, I kicked ass!"

"_Boys_," Erza said dangerously. They shut up. Erza nodded, obviously pleased with herself.

With all of them present and accounted for, Virgo disappeared into the ground, leaving a wide enough tunnel for them to follow. She even sealed it behind them as they traveled, probably to prevent pursuit from the Eisenwalders. Not that there would be any; Gray was pretty sure Erza had neutralized all of them. Then again, it was entirely possible they'd missed a couple.

They popped out of the ground somewhere in the street leading up to the station. The magic four wheeler was still where they'd left it, practically pressed up against the curb.

"Natsu, fly ahead and delay Erigor as long as you can. He's headed for Clover," Erza ordered.

"Got it!" Natsu said. They launched themselves into the air, vanishing into the sky.

Erza moved to get in the driver's seat. He stopped her. "You've already had this thing draining your magic from getting to Oshibana," he told her. "If you keep driving this thing at top speed, even you would be in danger of overtaxing yourself"

Her eyes narrowed. "I can handle it."  
He wanted to sigh. Why was she being so stubborn? Well, if she was anything like him, then citing the dangers to her own health wasn't likely to convince her, so a different approach was necessary. "Look," he said. "You're _Titania Erza_, and we're going to need you to be in top form if we're going after Erigor and stopping Lullabye. You're not going to be of any use if you're tripping over your own feet from magic exhaustion."

She looked as though she wanted to protest, but they didn't have time and she _knew_ it. "Fine," she relented.

He gave her a quick smile and all but shoved her into the carriage, then situated himself in the front of the vehicle.

He put on the SE plug and started it up, pushing it as fast as it could go, faster than he would've liked, but he didn't exactly have a choice. Maybe it was a bit hypocritical of him, given how he'd cautioned Erza against doing the very same earlier, but well, he understood the necessity of it. The sooner they stopped Erigor the better; better to catch him well before he reached Clover.

Still, the drain on his magic set in immediately, and he thought he knew why so few people used these, and certainly not to full speed. Few would have the reserves to get very far, and fewer still would be willing to sacrifice all that magic for _transportation_, not when there was easier ways like horse-drawn carriages or steam and coal-powered trains. Unfortunately, none of those were currently an option.

It wasn't _invasive_, per se—of course not, then no one would be willing to use them—but it was still foreign, strange, to have his magic sucked out of him without it appearing as ice.

Even with the four-wheeler at max speed, they would be much slower than Happy and Natsu. Gray could only hope that the dragonslayer would be able to hold Erigor off for long enough for them to get them. "Come on, Natsu…" he muttered to himself, barely aware of their surroundings flashing past them.

Pebbles skittered under the wheels, mostly-smooth cobbled road giving way to rocky terrain as they left the town, and he dragged them onto the train tracks. It wasn't likely that a train would be coming this way any time soon, what with the station being shut up and all, so he figured it was safe enough. Plus, it was the only on-land way of getting to Clover. (which, in hindsight, was a serious safety issue, considering that it crossed a massive ravine. If something were to happen to the train tracks, Clover would be completely cut off until they could fix it—which wouldn't be easy, given that it was a _ravine_ and all. But at least it meant they knew exactly the route Erigor would be taking.)

He'd been hoping Natsu could cut Erigor off before they reached the ravine, but it looked like that hadn't been the case. That left them at a disadvantage, assuming Natsu hadn't defeated Erigor already, if they were to fight there; Erigor could fly, so the ravine posed no danger to him, but _they_ couldn't. Or maybe Erza could; he _thought_ some of her armors might've been capable of flight, but he wasn't sure. He didn't really know what Erza's armors were capable of—it was time like these when he cursed being so new; it would've been helpful to know his teammates' capabilities.

A wave of fatigue washed over him, and his vision blurred slightly, but he gritted his teeth and pushed through it. He'd never had the largest reserves—he relied on precision, on his control. His attacks didn't take up much power, not like some other types of magic, and his skill at Ice Make lay in his moulding speed, which he was admittedly proud of, though it was nothing compared to Ur's. His reserves weren't _small_, per se, but he wasn't a massive powerhouse like Erza or Natsu, and considering that even _Erza_ had been wrung-out by pushing the magic four-wheeler to the max on their way to Oshibana, he felt he could be forgiven for his exhaustion.

(And maybe it would've been better for Erza to have been the one driving—she definitely would be in better shape than he'd be after driving this thing with her larger reserves—but he meant what he'd said: they needed her in top form. Him, not so much.)

_Just a little more_, he told himself, refusing to let up on the speed. He wasn't sure how long he was driving, the minutes blurring together into a haze of _just a little further_, but some time later, they caught up to Natsu.

He yanked the vehicle to a stop when he saw Natsu, standing over a downed Erigor. Natsu greeted them with a wide grin and a, "You're late! I already took down Erigor _ages_ ago."

"Excellent work, Natsu," Erza said, stepping out of the four-wheeler. Gray tried to drop down from the driver's seat—and promptly stumbled, swaying dangerously. He probably would've fallen if Lucy hadn't wrapped an arm around his waist.

"You okay?" she asked in concern.

He waved it off. "I'm fine. I just need a minute or two to recover some magic power."

She didn't sound convinced. "If you're sure."

"I am." He tuned back into Erza and Natsu's conversation.

"We should head to Clover and report what happened to the guild masters," Erza was saying. "We can let them dispose of Lullabye."

"That's probably for the best," he agreed. None of them knew how to destroy it—or if they even _could_ destroy it. Or what the repercussions might be—who knew if Zeref had put in a contingency plan should his demons die? No, it'd be best to let the guild masters decide, especially since none of _them_ could seal it away.

A flare of light and the crackle of lightning was their only warning before dark smoke began pouring out of Lullabye. "Fools and weaklings the lot of you," a voice snarled, dark undertones layering it, a cacophony of voices rolled into one. "I shall devour you all _myself_." Gray, footing already unsteady, staggered, earth shaking as an enormous clawed foot crashed into the ground.

"What is that thing?" Lucy asked, voice sounding almost small in the face of the giant demon towering over them.

"Lullabye's true form," he answered grimly, remembering the small sketch in the margins of the book. "A demon from the books of Zeref." This was playing havoc on his memories, the panic and fear and sheer _terror_ from Deliora rising to the surface of his mind, making it hard to think. He felt like a child again, small and lost and horror-struck, staring up at a nightmare, something more terrible than he could ever have dreamed up. He tamped the feelings down, locked it away in the corner of his mind. He was well aware he was going to be having nightmares later, but he could not afford to break down now, especially not in front of everyone.

Besides, this wouldn't be like Deliora, he told himself. Lullabye was far, far weaker than the demon that haunted his past. They could take it.

Lullabye was a grotesque creature, body made of gnarled, twisting branches like the wood his flute form was comprised of. Spikes jutted out from its back and arms, two horns protruding from the head. Its eyes glowed with an otherworldly purple light, and its mouth was a cavern of shadow, but with perfectly crafted teeth, at odds with the jagged nature of the rest of its body. Holes dotted its arms and legs, but an especially large chunk was missing from its torso, as though Zeref had decided a heart was unnecessary and had scooped it out. It was everything like Deliora, and yet nothing like it. The differences… helped, made it easier to keep a hold on reality.

"So then," Lullabye growled, mouth twisting into a parody of a smile. "Which one of your souls shall I consume first?"

A flare of light, and Erza was flying at Lullabye, swords drawn. It was an armor Gray had only seen in _Sorcery Weekly_ before, the Knight.

Lucy's mouth was set in a determined line. "Open, Gate of the Lion: Leo!"

"Hello Princess," the spirit greeted with a wink. "Might I just say how stunning you look as always?"

"Not the time, Loke. Flirt later; we've got a demon to take down." Lucy pulled out her whip, snapping it once or twice. Gray had to admit that it was rather beautiful, a trail of stars, ethereal and shining. Probably from the Celestial Spirit world.

"Later then," the spirit—Loke—agreed. (He wondered why Loke went by a different name than the one Lucy had called—Leo, wasn't it? So why was he also Loke? He wondered what the story was behind that.)

Gray turned his focus away from them, studying the demon to see if there were any vulnerabilities he could use, any weak spots. Of course, he could just fight head-on, but it was… easier, to take down an enemy if you knew where to hit, and took less effort and magic. Right now, he was still pretty low on magic, so he couldn't just launch himself at the demons like he normally would've.

Once the initial panic wore off, he could see that Lullabye wasn't really much like Deliora at all. It wasn't anywhere near as devastating, as powerful, though it did seem to be marginally more intelligent, in that it could speak. They could handle Lullabye.

Natsu bulldozed into Lullabye with a flaming fist, causing the demon to stumble backwards. Gray took advantage of that, hitting it with several ice lances, right where Natsu had. The demon growled and opened its maw. Gray threw himself out of the way just as a breath attack obliterated the ground where he'd been standing and a decent chunk of the mountain besides. His eyes darted around, checking to make sure everyone else was also alright.

They were, and that was… good. Less reassuring was the way the ground rumbled underneath them, as though in warning.

Shit. This bridge wasn't stable, not with a heavy demon sitting on it, and it wasn't helped in the least by the magic flying every which way or the cracks littering the ground from Natsu's earlier fight with Erigor or the chunk of it missing from Lullabye's last attack. It would've been better if they'd caught Erigor before he got this far, back when they were still on solid land.

He very carefully didn't think about just how far away the bottom of the ravine was from here, or the angry, raging river underneath.

Gray waited until Lucy's spirit had gotten a hit in, then launched a spinning disk of ice at Lullabye, sawing into its core. "Nice one!" Lucy shouted at him as she passed.

"Thanks!" he called back, absently throwing up a shield in front of them to block another attack.

Lullabye sucked in a mouthful of air—ethernano—and stilled. The buildup of magic signified another breath attack and Gray braced himself. This one looked like it'd be stronger than the others before it. It wasn't aimed in his direction, thundering towards Erza, who was already flying out of the way of the attack, but even from the opposite side of the demon he could feel the backlash of the attack, the force of it pushing him back.

He had the sudden feeling that this might've been the finishing blow, instincts screaming at him to _get out of here_. The ground wasn't stable and Lullabye was only damaging it more. It shook under the onslaught, _trembled_, faint at first but growing ever-stronger, and that was all the warning he had before it crumbled from under his feet.

He fell.

For ten whole heart-stopping seconds, he was free-falling, ground gone from under his feet and air whooshing past him. He had time to think, _now would've been a good time to have found a way to fly_. (If he survived this, he was _so_ going to figure out those ice wings.)

Then two little paws gripped the back of his shirt, arresting his momentum—and holy crap, he had _never_ been so glad to have (mostly) trained himself out of his stripping habit.

The shattered pieces of Lullabye tumbled past them, engulfed in fire—Natsu's Roar, probably, he noted. It was almost anticlimactic; it felt as though Lullabye did more damage to their surroundings than it did to them—not that he was complaining. At least Lullabye wouldn't be an issue anymore. It looked pretty thoroughly destroyed, and Gray watched as the last pieces dissolved into ash.

"Thanks Happy," he said, gratitude and relief bleeding into his voice.

"Aye!"

"Everyone else…?"

"They're fine," Happy confirmed. "Erza's got her flight armor, and Natsu's got the sticky fire-web thing Macao showed him. And Erza's got Lucy, I think."

Gray closed his eyes for a few moments, let himself bask in the relief, then opened them again. "Good." Happy swerved to avoid a falling hunk of green metal, which Gray identified to be their magic four-wheeler. Oops. Looked like they'd have to find another way back. "Can't say the same for our ride, though."

Happy took them higher, occasionally dodging the falling debris, and set him down next to Lucy. Her spirit was already gone, key back in the ring on her belt, and she looked slightly banged up but fine overall. Blood dripped from a shallow cut on her cheek, where presumably a piece of rubble had clipped her, but that and a smattering of bruises appeared to be the worst of her injuries.

They were off the ravine now—it looked like the entire bridge had been destroyed, jagged fissures marking where it had broken off. "Oh, thank goodness you're alright!" Lucy exclaimed.

He gave her a sharp grin. "It'll take a lot more than a little fall to kill me." And that was the story of his life, wasn't it? There were so many times when he _should've_ died but didn't, whether because luck favored him or because other died for him. He still couldn't tell if Fate hated him or loved him enough to keep him alive. Either way, Fate was cruel. It was a bitterness he was long-used to the taste of.

At least this time it'd been _him_ in danger, and not the others. There'd been a _reason_ why he'd kept his distance from others over the years, why he guarded his heart and refused to let anyone in. Ur and Lyon and his parents had torn a ragged chunk out of his heart, gaping holes torn where they'd once resided. If he lost anyone else, he was afraid he might shatter. And he couldn't let himself fall apart until he'd done his damnedest to undo his mistakes.

"Yeah right, Ice Princess. If it weren't for Happy, you'd be a goner," Natsu scoffed, though it did little to cover up the relief in his voice. It struck Gray that for the first time in years, since Ur and Lyon, someone was there for him. Someone would _miss_ him if something were to happen to him. It was… new. But also dangerous. Still, he supposed it was inevitable. Of _course_ Natsu had bulldozed straight over the walls he'd put up, and had very firmly taken residence in his heart. As if he'd had any hope of keeping the flame-brain out—whatever else he was, he was a stubborn bastard.

He'd never been very good at not caring, anyways, always too quick to love and slow to let go. And it was doubly hard to stop caring after he started.

(And part of him wondered—if he'd gone to Fairy Tail, had traveled west like Ur had told them to right afterwards, instead of digging around Isvan to find a way to undo Iced Shell—could he have had this for years? How different could his life have been? It was a selfish thought, wondering if he could've been happy if he'd forsaken Ur—but he couldn't help but imagine what it would've been, growing up with Natsu and Erza and Lucy and Cana and all the others in Fairy Tail.)

He didn't regret joining Fairy Tail, nor did he think he would in the future, despite the vulnerabilities it opened up. Only a few days, and already the part of him that was empty, the pieces of his heart held together only by sheer determination to undo his mistakes was finally mending, if only a little. _Happiness_ was an odd feeling, something he hadn't really had since before Deliora. Sure he'd had glimpses of it over the years, and he thought he _could_ have been happy with Ur and Lyon if only he'd let go of his anger and burning desire for revenge, but the memories were more bittersweet, because he'd been broken and grieving and raging against the world, then.

Erza landed next to them, requipping back into her Heart Kreuz armor between one second and the next. At some point, she'd switched from the Knight armor to another one he didn't recognize, a black one with black veined wings. It kind of reminded of dragon wings, actually. "It's good to see everyone is mostly unharmed."

"What are we supposed to do now?" He gestured at the newly-destroyed railroad.

Lucy cringed. "The Magic Council's going to have our heads," she muttered. "They already have it out for Fairy Tail and this isn't going to help matters."

"What's it matter what those old farts think?" Natsu said. "We got rid of the demon flute, didn't we?"

"Yeah, and destroyed an important railroad in the process, which is probably hundreds or thousands of Jewels in damages," Gray pointed out dryly. "Somehow, I don't think they're going to take 'it was the demon flute's fault' as an excuse."

"Well, they should," Natsu said sulkily. "Who cares about one measely bridge?"

"You might not have to deal with their complaints, but I've seen the paperwork," Lucy said archly. "And let me tell you, it's a pain. I kind of feel bad for the Master, what with all the damages you incur."

Natsu turned to Happy, pulling his best impression of a kicked-puppy look. Gray… was not impressed. "Happy, back me up."  
"Nope. Lucy and Gray are right."

"Hey!" Natsu complained, scowling at Happy. The cat grinned smugly back. "Traitor."

"I'm only telling the truth," Happy said, pouting, kitten-eyes much more effective than Natsu's.

"Alright, settle down," Erza said, the corners of her mouth quirking upwards in amusement. "I think we should report to the Master, at the very least. He can handle the," she waved at the destruction, "damages."

"I guess we should get going then," Lucy said, sounding none too enthusiastic about the ensuing walk.

Gray kind of got where she was coming from. Without the magic mobile, the trip to Clover on foot took _hours_. With the adrenaline rush fading, fatigue settled back in in its place, draping over him like a smothering blanket. His legs threatened to give out under him about halfway through, not yet fully recovered from the magic exhaustion, but he pushed on. Like hell he was going to collapse in front of Natsu. He had _some_ pride and dignity left, thank you very much, and he had no desire to hand him any blackmail opportunities.

And it was more than just physical exhaustion; the magic depletion alone, he could handle. But seeing Lullabye dragged up old memories that really should've stayed buried, bringing the fear and terror and grief back up to the surface. He was as tired from keeping that at bay as he was from pumping all his magic into the four-wheeler.

Given all that, the result was that by the time they approached the meeting hall, night had fallen and the world was starting to blur dangerously. He was pretty sure if he stopped moving, he was going to fall over.

"Oi, Ice Block, quit dragging your feet!" Natsu called. Gray blinked. When had Natsu and the others gotten so far ahead of him? Natsu paused, before saying bluntly, but with a hint of concern, "You good? You look like you're going to fall over. You better not faint on us, Snowflake."

Erza detached herself from where she'd been half-leaning on Lucy. "It's the magic mobile, isn't it? I should've remembered that you'd had your magic continuously sucked out of you on our way to Erigor, and with the fight with Lullabye right after…" She offered him a hand, her own posture sagging slightly from exhaustion. It was barely noticeable, but still there.

He eyed it uncertainly, unused to such overt concern. He was irritated with himself for letting so much weakness slip, but… he wavered on his feet and clung onto her hand for balance lest he topple over and waited until the pounding in his head subsided.

Then, he forced himself upright and to continue moving forward. "I'm good."

Erza huffed. "Don't be ridiculous." She grabbed one of his arms and slung it over her shoulder, ignoring his protest that he was _fine_, really, she didn't have to do that.

(But honestly, they'd just had a fight with a demon, and it was _magic _exhaustion that was plaguing him. For some reason, he found it incredibly funny.)

It was anyone's guess whether the guild masters had sensed their approach or whether they were outside because the meeting was over, but either way, they were spotted by the group as soon as the made it out of the treeline. Gray wondered what kind of sight they made, him and Erza stumbling forward together, Lucy and Natsu flanking them, and Happy fluttering in the air above them all.

"Natsu? Erza? Lucy? What are you guys doing here?"

Lucy waved weakly. "Hi Master."

"Natsu, what did you destroy this time?" Master Makarov sighed, long-suffering.

"Gramps, why did you automatically assume _I_ did something?" Natsu protested indignantly. An unimpressed look was leveled his way.

"It really wasn't his fault this time. Well," Erza amended. "Not _just_ Natsu's fault. We are all at fault, but I'll take full responsibility as team leader."

"What happened?"

"Well, we maybe-sort-of blewuptherailroadtoClover?" Lucy said quickly, words lilting upwards like a question.

"You _what_?!" Master Makarov yelped. He groaned. "You brats are giving me so many headaches."

Several of the other guild masters wandered over, probably to check on what all the commotion was about. A bald man wearing a truly horrifying outfit and way-too-bright lipstick squealed, "Makki, your kids are so _cute_!" Gray inched away from him.

"Who's that?" he asked Erza.

"That's Master Bob of Blue Pegasus," she answered, seemingly unbothered by the man. In fact, she seemed _amused_ by his and Natsu's reactions.

Master Bob spotted Erza. "Erza, sweetie, you've grown!"

She dipped her head in greeting. "Hello, Master Bob."

Another guild master wearing a spiked hat and collar laughed as Natsu was swept up in a bone-crushing hug. Gray kind of pitied the flame brain. "That's Bob for ya," the guild master said, not unsympathetically. "You'll get used to him. So what happened that's got you in such a tizzy, Makarov?"

In answer to his silent inquiry, Lucy told him, "That's Goldmine, master of Quatro Cerberos." In all honesty, Gray had never heard of Quatro Cerberos before, but he nodded anyway in acknowledgement.

"Ask the brats," Master Makarov groused. Several pairs of interested eyes turned to them. Unobtrusively, Gray slid behind Erza. He wasn't shy, per se, but between the pounding in his head and the fact that he literally had never met these people before in his life, he'd rather she or Lucy recount the story. Not Natsu; Natsu, Gray was sure, would make for a truly terrible storyteller. Besides, he wasn't sure how long he could listen to Natsu's embellishments without wanting to punch him out of sheer aggravation.

"Well, there was a demon flute and dark guild called Eisenwald…" Lucy began.

* * *

**A/N: And that's a wrap on Lullabye! Next up: Natsu and Erza's fight… and Galuna. I know most of this has been in Gray's POV, despite me saying that this was supposed to be from Natsu and Gray's perspectives. So, we get Natsu next chapter. I haven't planned Galuna out yet, but Natsu's probably going to get a fair bit of attention in it, just for the "outside" reactions to witnessing Gray's traumatic history. **

**So, there's no Kageyama in this chapter, since here, **_**Gray**_ **was the one to give the key to Lucy, and he's a lot less forgetful than Happy, so Lucy actually knew she had the key and created the contract beforehand, so they don't have to deal with finding Kageyama and him getting stabbed—ergo, they leave without Kageyama, a good deal earlier than they had in canon. No Kageyama means no one to steal Lullabye and run off to the guild masters… so cue Lullabye deciding to eat Gray and co and go off and get the rest himself. **

**Also, would Lullabye be a "he"? I just kinda used "it" since I'm not sure the more primitive demons like Deliora and Lullabye have genders… I'm mean, maybe the Tartaros demons do since they're more developed, but would Lullabye?**

**Another change: the whole Loke thing already happened. I just don't think it's possibly that Lucy managed to miss Loke being a Celestial Spirit for what, three years? Especially considering that she caught it barely a few weeks after she joined Fairy Tail in canon. So, in here, Loke is Lucy's Celestial Spirit. It's kinda "blink and you miss it" in here, but it's there. **

**Is the ending kind of abrupt? It feels like it might be… **

**As always, leave a review and let me know what you think!**

**~ Silver **


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: … Hi? Sorry it's been so long since the last update. (It's been almost half a year… yikes) I'm such a terrible procrastinator, XD Well, part of that was also because I wasn't too happy with where this story was going6—it feels a little too close to canon. I freely admit this fic is a bit of a mess. Having never written anything longer than a 5k oneshot in the past, I'm not very well versed in how to pull a multichapter fic together, like pacing, storyline, etc. **

**I've mostly been writing this on and off over the summer, little snippets at a time, so I figured I'd post this before school starts on Wednesday and I get busy again. So I guess here it is… **

* * *

**...**

_**though the stars walk backward**_

_**.**_

_**Chapter 5**_

**...**

* * *

Something was up with Gray. He seemed a bit… distracted wasn't quite the word Natsu was looking for. It was more like Gray was stuck inside his own head, seeing things none of the rest of them could. If Natsu really thought about it, he was pretty sure it'd started with Lullabye. _Not_ that he'd been paying close enough attention to notice… the Ice Princess was just not being subtle about it. At all.

After all, Natsu was well aware he could be pretty oblivious, and he didn't really always catch those subtle cues, so if even _he_ was picking up on it… Well.

So obviously, the best thing to do would be to distract Gray. Natsu wasn't one for mushy touchy-feely talks, and fighting Gray didn't seem to be working (the last time he tried, Gray just flat-out turned and left. And if that wasn't proof something was wrong, he didn't know what was), so what would? A job, maybe? But most jobs were kinda boring… all the good monster-fighting jobs were already taken, and any new ones hadn't been posted yet.

But there were always the S-class jobs… The more Natsu thought about it, the more he liked it. It was perfect; when he successfully completed a S-class job, Gramps would _have_ to make him a S-class mage _and_ it would be challenging enough to get Gray's mind off things. Win-win! (He was _not_ doing this because he was concerned. Nope. It was just strange to see the Ice Block in such a funk.)

Plus, it'd help make up for losing to Erza. Again. And especially given everything that went down with Laxus earlier… Well. Maybe he was just a little upset Gramps cut him down so quickly. He didn't even manage to get a punch in. Nevermind that, he thought.

"Psst! Happy!" he whispered.

Happy looked up from where he was eating a fish and frowned, actually setting the fish down. "Uh-oh. You have that look on your face again."

Natsu paused. "...What look?"

"You know, the I'm-going-to-do-something-stupid look."

"Wha—? No I don't!"

"Yes, you do."  
"No I don't."

"Yes you do."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"No."

"_Yes_," Natsu said, punctuated with a glare. Then he paused. Wait...

"Thank you for proving my point," Happy said primly.

Natsu spluttered. "You tricked me!"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Happy said, widening his eyes guilelessly.

He huffed, looking away from the kitten eyes, lest he be drawn in. "Traitor. See if I ever get you fish again."

"Wha— No _fish_? Naaatsu, take that back!" Happy wailed.

"Not until you apologize," said Natsu, crossing his arms.

"I'm sorry," Happy said immediately.

Natsu peered at him suspiciously. "That was fast."

"Nothing is more important than fish," Happy said solemnly, as though imprating some grave secret. Then, "So anyway, what did you want earlier?"

Oh, right. He'd almost forgotten what he'd meant to do. He grinned. "I'm going to do an S-class! Then Gramps'll _have_ to make me an S-class mage."

Happy stared in shock. "Are you serious? An _S-class?_ You know only S-class mages are allowed on those! Erza is going to _murder_ you when she finds out."

Natsu shivered at the thought of Erza on a rampage. It wasn't too late to reconsider… Then he thought about the looks on everyone's faces when he came back an official S-class mage. Nope, it would be worth it. Besides, once he pulled it off, maybe Erza would let him have a proper rematch, one that _wouldn't_ be interrupted. "Come on, it'll be fine."

Happy stared a little longer, like he was evaluating his sanity. Natsu was a little offended by that. This idea wasn't _that_ stupid. When it became clear he wasn't going to change his mind, Happy let out a breath. "Fine, but it's your funeral."

"Great," Natsu said cheerfully.

"Is there any request in particular you want me to grab?"

Natsu was about to shrug it off, but then paused. "Actually… grab the one with the smallest reward." It was their first S-class, after all. They could always scale up afterwards. Besides, even the smallest S-class requests had pretty large rewards; he remembered that much from the times when he'd been on the second floor, _before_ Gramps instituted the rule two years ago.

"Alrighty then." A flutter of wings, and Happy was off.

Natsu watched him go. Then he turned and picked up the closest object to him—one of Cana's barrels of beer, as it turned out—and chucked it at Elfman. Predictably, that had Elfman roaring to go, with the bonus of Cana also throwing herself into the fray in fury over the wasted alcohol. Five minutes later, ducking another wayward punch in the chaos of the guild hall, Natsu grinned. Sure, probably no one would find Happy flying around as suspicious, but it wasn't like a distraction would _hurt_, and Natsu was great at distractions.

And besides, after the whole debacle with Erza's arrest, he'd been itching for a good old-fashioned guild brawl.

...The only downside was that since he started it, Mira roped him into helping with the clean up. The guild hall itself wasn't trashed too badly, but there were a couple new dents in the wall and several piles of splintered wood and sawdust where there was once furniture. (Gramps had stared at the destruction before mournfully burying himself into his drink, muttering about the paperwork.) The end result: by the time he left the guild, the sky was already darkening, the last bits of pink and orange fading from the sky. Gray had left a while ago, after talking about something with Mira over a newly-cleaned bar counter.

Happy met him outside the guild hall, a piece of paper clutched in his paws.

Natsu grabbed it. "Hey!" Happy protested as the paper was yanked from his paws. Natsu ignored him in favor of scanning the job request. Let's see… Some place called Galuna that he'd never heard of… a supposed demon's curse… reward: seven million jewels… Seemed interesting enough.

Natsu grinned. "C'mon buddy, let's go crash at Gray's apartment."

Happy shook his head, tone tinged with something that might've been exasperation. "You know, one of these days, Gray's just going to lock you out if you keep breaking into his apartment."

"Nah," Natsu said casually, setting out along the canal that ran parallel to Gray's apartment block, "I'll just go in through the window."

Happy sighed but let it drop. As Gray's apartment building came into sight, Natsu headed towards the Ice Block's window and, after checking to make sure it was open, hopped up onto the windowsill.

Gray looked up from where he sat on the couch, reading a book. "Get out of my apartment," he said flatly, when he saw who it was.

Natsu just rolled his eyes and stepped the rest of the way in, leaving the window open just to annoy the Ice Princess. "Yeah, yeah. Hello to you two bastard."

"I have a perfectly serviceable door, you know. Why do you two keep insisting on using the window?"

Natsu waved it off. "Who uses _doors_? Windows are so much faster. Anyway, I've picked our next job," he announced brightly.

"Oh?"

He smiled, sharp-edged. "Yup. We're going to do an S-class!" He held up the job request, the red S-class stamp helpfully emblazoned over the front.

Gray's eyes narrowed. "How did you get that, Flamebrain? I thought Master Makarov said only S-class mages were allowed on the second floor."

"I just flew up and took it," Happy said, blasé.

"You mean you guys stole it."

"Wellllll… maybe. But if we do this job, then Gramp'll _have_ to make us S-class!"

Gray didn't seem impressed. "You don't have permission to do this—I'm pretty sure the Master will be _furious_ if he finds out you took this job. This is just dumb, moron. If you _wanted_ to become S-class, try following the guild's rules."

Natsu scowled. "That'd take _forever_."

Gray sat back and picked up his book again. "Yeah, well, I'm out. You two can just do it on your own if you're so determined to dig your own grave."

"It's on a tropical island," Happy started, then, upon seeing that Gray remained unimpressed, added, "I'll even give you half of the fish I catch!"

A hint of amusement slipped into Gray's voice. "That's not really an incentive, you know." He didn't even bother to look up from his book, though it didn't look like he was actually _reading_ it. "I'm not going."

Natsu hid his disappointment. "Fine, then," he huffed. And no, he was _not_ sulking, stop making that face, Happy. "We're outta here." He tossed a wave over his shoulder and hopped out the window. He left the job request behind. Maybe it would help make Gray change his mind.

"Use the _door_!" Gray called after them. With his sharpened senses, he heard Gray mutter under his breath, "Geez, the two of them." Natsu continued walking away, Happy flying next to him, but he trained his dragon-enhanced hearing on Gray's apartment, straining to pick up the slightest of sounds. It wasn't too difficult, actually; at this hour of night, there weren't very many people out and about, so at least he didn't have to work too hard to filter out the background noise. There was a brief pause, and then a rustle of paper as Gray apparently found the job request left on the floor. A long silence. A sharp intake of breath. Then—

"Happy! Natsu! Wait a second!" The light in the apartment flickered off, and Gray slid out the window, shutting it firmly behind him and landing neatly on the ground. Natsu stopped walking and turned back. Was he—?

"I changed my mind," Gray said as he caught up to them, job request in hand. "I'm coming along with you."

Natsu blinked at him. Not that it wasn't great and all, but what was with the sudden change of mind? He didn't voice the thought—it would suck if he suddenly chased the Ice Block off after he _just_ agreed to come along. Natsu got the sense that this was probably something to do with whatever Gray had been up to before they met in Hargeon, and he was pretty touchy about anything to do with his past. Best leave it alone.

Hey, contrary to popular belief, he wasn't _completely_ tactless. And anyway, most of Fairy Tail didn't like talking about their pasts. Gray wasn't an exception.

Instead, he grinned. "Great! Let's go!" Hopefully no one would find the missing job request until it was too late to stop them. The guild was closed for the night, so that meant no one would be into the guild hall until the next morning. That gave them _plenty_ of time to chart out the route to Galuna island.

Seemingly having picked up on part of his thoughts, Gray asked, "Do you even know where Galuna island _is_? Or how to get there?"

"Uhhh…"

Gray sighed. "I'll take that as a no." He hummed thoughtfully. "We should probably take a train to Hargeon, on the coast—the locals will probably know more about where the island is than we do. Especially if it's supposedly cursed; nothing spreads faster than gossip and rumors like that."

Natsu made a face at the mention of trains. "Do we _have_ to take the train? We could always walk there," he suggested hopefully. "Or, heck, Happy can just fly us over!"

"I can't carry two people, Natsu," Happy pointed out.

"And I refuse to walk that many miles when there are perfectly serviceable trains. Suck it up," Gray said unsympathetically.

Natsu groaned. "If I throw up, it's going to be on you," he threatened. He'd like to see Gray make fun of his motion sickness after _that_.

"Try that, and I will _murder_ you," Gray returned flatly.

They bickered until they reached the train station, where they bought tickets from a bored-looking ticket seller, and Gray and Happy had to drag him (reluctantly) onto the last train of the day. Natsu made sure to protest the whole way to make it clear that he was most definitely _not_ on board with it.

Due to its lateness, most of the cars were empty except for a few solitary passengers here and there. That suited him just fine. Natsu flopped over across three seats, stretching out so he was leaning against the window and his feet stuck into the aisle. Gray and Happy took the seats facing across from him.

As soon as the train started moving, the nausea hit him full-force. He hadn't checked how long the train ride was, but after so many years of traveling—and considering how terrible train rides always were—he didn't need to. All train rides to the coast took several hours, which meant several hours of nausea-induced hell. Hopefully though, he would be able to fall asleep and get _some_ reprieve from feeling so sick.

He wasn't quite sure _when_, exactly, he finally dozed off into a somewhat uneasy sleep, but what felt like moments later, he was being shaken awake by Gray. "Natsu. We're here."

He dragged his eyes open blearily and blinked, letting them adjust to the suddenly-harsh train light. Gray yanked him to his feet. "C'mon, flamebrain. If you don't get up, the train's going to start up again and we'll have missed our stop. Do you _want_ a longer train ride?"

_That_ had Natsu wide-awake, scrambling frantically after Gray until they _finally_ stepped off the train onto the platform itself. There, he stretched, reveling in the distinct lack of nausea. He wondered if it would be too much to try to hug the ground, the wonderfully _solid_ ground. Probably. He did it anyway.

Gray watched with no small amount of amusement. "Wow, you really hate transportation, don't you?"

Natsu stood up. "I never want to get on a train again. But _someone_," he glared daggers, "refused to let us walk."

Gray rolled his eyes. "You're the one who picked a job so far away. You have only yourself to blame, idiot."

"We could have _walked_. It would've only taken a couple of days."

"Yeah, no. Now you're just being ridiculous."

Natsu grumbled to himself. Stupid Ice Block. What was wrong with walking a couple of days? It was loads better than, ugh, taking the _train_.

Gray glanced at the sky, now fully dark and sprinkled with stars, then did a double-take. "Oh," he said, grimacing faintly at whatever revelation he had.

"What?" Natsu prodded, still annoyed from being dragged onto _transportation_.

"It's late," Gray said, rather unnecessarily.

"No shit," Natsu said. "So?"

"_So_ we're not going to be able to find anyone to take us to the island at this hour," Gray said pointedly. "Even if there were people up and about who knew how to get there, they're not going to want to navigate in the dark, especially not to a supposedly _cursed_ island."

Oh. Oops. He hadn't thought of that. But like hell he was going to admit that to the Ice Princess. "Let's look around. We'll find _someone_," he said stubbornly. And maybe just to be contrary. Just a little.

"But Natsu, I'm hungry!" Happy cried.

"Didn't you eat a couple fish just a few hours ago?"

"Yeah, but now I'm hungry again. I want fish," the blue cat said plainly.

"You _always_ want fish."

"Well, yeah. Fish is the best," Happy said, matter-of-fact like he was saying the sky was blue.

"We might as well go get something—if any places are open, that is," Gray conceded. "We can ask around town while we're at it. It'll kill two birds with one stone."

* * *

As it turned out, he totally was right. (Ha, take _that_ Natsu.) Asking around, anyone who _was_ willing to talk to them told them to wait until the next morning, or just flat-out booked it once they heard "Galuna island." "That place is _cursed_," one sailor said. He shivered. "You'd be better off leaving it alone." Most of everyone else they talked to also tried to talk them out of going to the island.

Natsu utterly refused to admit defeat, but Gray and Happy ended up dragging him to stay in a cheap inn until morning sometime after the second hour of repeated failures. If they were going to go on an S-class, Gray reasoned, they might as well get a good night's rest.

As a bonus, the inn included breakfast. Not that it was a particularly _good_ one, but Gray had definitely had worse over the years. Plus, it had a lot of fish, likely due their close proximity to the sea; that left Happy pretty, well, happy, at least. He felt kind of bad for the inn, though, having to deal with Natsu's bottomless pit of a stomach.

After Gray paid for their stay (Natsu and Happy had, apparently, forgotten to bring money), they emerged into the bright sunlight the next morning at around ten to eleven o'clock. Gray himself had been awake since seven, but Natsu didn't drag himself out of bed until nine-thirty, despite Gray's constant prodding. And even _then_, the dragonslayer was a zombie, shuffling around until breakfast finally managed to wake him up. Clearly, he wasn't a morning person.

Unfortunately, asking around on the docks got them much the same answer as the night before. Oh, sure, everyone they spoke to knew what they were talking about and what Galuna island was, but they also all happened to know about the "cursed" aspect and refused to take them there. From the sound of it, most sailors wouldn't even go _near_ the island.

"Galuna island?" their most recent attempt cried, then, echoing all the others: "You've got to be _kidding_ me. I'm not going _near_ it."

A nearby sailor shivered. "I don't even want to hear the name."

"It's cursed, is what it is," the first local snorted. "You're not going to find any ship to take you—even the pirates avoid it."

Gray was seriously debating the merit of just trying to create a boat with his ice-make—sure, it wouldn't be particularly _fast_, since he couldn't create a working motor or anything, but it beat out their other Natsu-proposed option of _swimming_ there, and it was looking more and more likely to be necessary by the minute.

Natsu wasn't really helping matters, either. "Great then!" he cheered, looking gleeful rather than disappointed by their failure to find a ship. "It's decided—we're swimming."

"Feel free," Gray said, "but I'm not rescuing you if you drown halfway there."

"I wouldn't _drown_," Natsu said indignantly, looking offended at the suggestion that _water_ of all things would do a _fire_ dragonslayer in.

Gray opened his mouth to retort, then blinked in surprise as his attention was caught by another figure standing on the pier. "Lucy?"

"Huh?" Natsu twisted around to peer at the blonde. "What are you doing here?"

Lucy twirled a silver key around her fingers, her other down at her side right next to her keyring. "Orders from the Master to bring you back," she said airily, though the look in her eyes suggested she was being anything but.

Natsu crossed his arms. "Well, you can tell Gramps that I'm not going. I'm _going_ to do an S-class."

"Be reasonable—if you come back now, you _might_ not be expelled from the guild." Her eyes narrowed. "Otherwise, I'm authorized to bring you back with force, if necessary."

"I'm not going to back down," Natsu said, one fist catching fire.

"Open, Gate of the Clock Constellation: Horologium!" With the ringing of chimes, a brown… clock? popped into existence. Gray eyed it warily. What was the spirit able to do? Lucy was smart—_clever_, really; there had to be a reason why she picked a silver gate key rather than the more comparatively powerful and rare golden keys. Lucy pointed at the two of them. "Get them!"

Before Gray could react, his surroundings suddenly got a lot narrower as he was forcibly sucked into the clock's body. It was rather cramped and uncomfortable, and he was forced to curl in on himself to fit, with his front practically pressed against the glass; he kind of got the sense that it was sized for someone smaller and with a more slender build. A dull throbbing pain flared to life in his elbow as he accidentally banged it against the side of his wooden confinement.

Well. That might've been the fastest someone managed to trap him. Props to Lucy for that, he guessed.

Outside, Lucy winced. "Oops, sorry Gray. I was aiming for Natsu." Tellingly, though, she didn't release her spirit.

Gray tested the walls around him. They didn't feel that thick; he was pretty confident that if he applied enough force, he'd be able to free himself. But he really didn't want to escalate this situation even more; best to just watch and wait, for now, he decided.

"Magic?" A nearby fisherman stood up in his boat, cutting through the tension. "Are you mages, then? Could you be here to lift the curse on the island?"

"Yup!" Natsu affirmed.

At the same time, Lucy said, "No. They _were_, but they're not supposed to be taking this job."

The fisherman stared a little, as though trying to puzzle out which of them to believe. Evidently his desire for the curse to be gone (for whatever reason—it seemed a little personal, if he was willing to ask after it when none of the others they spoke to did) won out. "Get on board." He jabbed a finger toward his small wooden boat for emphasis.

"Seriously?" Gray started in surprise.

Lucy seemed to be equally taken aback at this sudden turn of events. Natsu had no qualms about taking advantage of this. He chopped the back of her neck, catching her as she toppled over into unconsciousness. The clock vanished as she fell, the magic dispelled as she lost consciousness, and Gray abruptly found himself back on the ground. He shook his head and pulled himself to his feet.

"Looks like we're taking a boat after all," Natsu said, looking none-too-enthused about the prospect. Nevertheless, he dumped Lucy in the boat, then hopped in after her.

"Wait, we're taking her with us?"

"Well, yeah. If she goes back, they'll send _Erza_ after us next!" Natsu shivered.

"They'll send her even _if_ we take Lucy with us," Gray pointed out.

Natsu huffed. "Yeah, but at least this way, it'll take _longer_. We'll have finished the job before then!"

Privately, Gray thought Natsu was severely underestimating the amount of time the job would take, but oh well.

After making sure they were all onboard, the engine hummed to life and they set off at a brisk pace, the streamlined shape of the boat cutting effortlessly through the water. Almost immediately, Natsu slumped over the edge of the ship, looking a little green around the gills. Gray almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

It took Lucy a couple of hours to finally stirr. Natsu must've hit her pretty hard. He'd wanted to tie her up too, but Gray had refused. It wasn't necessary—it wasn't like she had anywhere to _go_, he pointed out. They'd moved her keyring out of her reach just in case, though. He didn't know what spirits she had, and he wasn't ruling out the possibility of _one_ of them being a water-spirit.

"Gr'y?" she muttered groggily.

"Hey," he said softly. He felt a tad guilty about mixing her up in all this, and he just knew she was going to _flip_ later, once she was more awake. After all, this might get _her_ into trouble with the Master too. But it was better than just _leaving_ her, vulnerable and unconscious, on the docks, so he supposed he had to pick the lesser of the bad options.

"Wh't happened?" She blinked a couple of times, the fog in her eyes clearing. He could see the exact moment Lucy fully woke up—she jerked upright with enough force to rock the boat, ripples of water that were quickly left behind as the engine sped them ahead. "_Natsu_," she growled, eyes flashing dangerously. "Oh, I'm going to _strangle_ him."

"You might want to wait for him to be fully conscious first," Gray suggested wryly. "At this point, he might consider freeing him from his motion sickness a mercy."

She spun around, jabbing a finger at him. "Don't think I've forgotten about you, either. _Natsu_, I can get—he's an idiot with a tendency to rush into trouble—but I thought _you_ at least would be sensible enough. What in the _world_ possessed you to go along with this hare-brained scheme?"

Gray hesitated. His past was _his_ business; sure, he liked Lucy and all, but he didn't think he was ready to open up just yet. "...Let's just say I have bad experiences with demons," he said.

Lucy studied him. Whatever she saw in his expression must have convinced her, since she deflated. "Fine. But don't think Erza will let you off the hook that easily." She glanced around at the sea, stretching out endlessly around them in all directions. "How long have we been traveling?"

"A couple of hours."

She groaned. "I guess it's too late to turn back, huh? And it just _had_ to be one of Aquarius' off-days, too," she muttered under her breath.

Gray blinked at that last part. "Huh?"

"Nevermind." She sighed. "_Great_, now you and Natsu got _me_ mixed up into this mess, too. I don't even want to _think_ about how much trouble we'll be in once we go back."

He winced. "...Yeah, sorry about that."

"I'm still mad," she informed him, primly. She crossed her arms, leaning back against the side of the boat.

Yeah, he supposed she had every right to be. "The job reward includes a golden key," he offered. Not to pacify or placate her, really—she had every right to be upset. More like an incentive for her not to immediately throttle them all. He _liked_ living, thank you very much.

"Oh?" A gleam of interest. Her lips curled upwards into a smile. "Guess you're off the hook, then. But _Natsu_, on the other hand…" she trailed off meaningfully, something very similar to the look of Erza on a warpath in her eyes. Gray _definitely_ didn't envy Natsu at that moment. Served the Flamebrain right, though.

Lucy glanced around them and shivered, the indignant irritation fading from her eyes. "This is seriously starting to give me the creeps," she muttered.

Gray had to agree; creepy was maybe even a bit of an understatement. _Ominous_ was more like it—the sea was glassy and eerily smooth, like the calm before the storm, though the fog smothering their surroundings made it difficult to see more than ten feet in any given direction. Above them, darkness clung to the sky, clouds purple-black and _angry_. He wasn't sure if they'd actually been traveling long enough that it was now night—or if there was a storm brewing, violent enough to completely block out any trace of sunlight. Maybe it was a bit of both.

He was starting to get why all the locals were so scared of this place.

But given that, Gray thought, it was all the more strange that this fisherman agreed to take them—and so out of the blue, too. Suspicious, even. And maybe he was just too paranoid and jaded after the years traveling on his own, but— Better safe than sorry.

He kept his tone light and conversational, in case the fisherman really _was_ a serial killer or something; it wouldn't due to risk tipping him off. Which reminded him—he still didn't even know the guy's name. "So why'd you change your tune so quickly when you fought out we were mages?"

"My name's Bobo. I used to live on that island," the fisherman—Bobo—started.

Oh. Huh. That was unexpected. (And a lot less nefarious than some of the scenarios his brain had immediately jumped to. Maybe he was just a _little_ too quick to jump to the worst case scenarios…) Gray supposed that _did_ explain some of it—if he had once lived on the island, no wonder Bobo was willing to approach it when no one else was. Plus, that would explain why he was so eager for them to remove the curse.

But just because all of the pieces fit, didn't mean that he wasn't getting the sense that there was something _more_ to it.

"Should you go to that island, misfortune will befall you," Bobo warned, grave. He fixed them with a steely look, equal parts hope and doubt, like he was afraid of getting his hopes up too high. "Can you really undo the curse?"

Gray bit back his instinctive reassurance of "of course"—because really, what did he know about curses? The only curses he knew of were the ones Zeref's demons used, from books ancient enough that the paper fell apart under his touch. This was something else; not merely another form of power, like magic.

But if nothing else, he was certainly going to _try_.

A flash of Bobo's cloak, and Gray inhaled sharply at the grotesque limb that was revealed, gnarled and twisted like Lullabye had been. A demon's arm. "That's—"

Next to him, Lucy breathed out, "The curse… you don't mean…"

Bobo swung his head around to look before them, where the smudge of black was taking shape into the island. His lack of response was answer enough. Around them, the waves were picking up, choppy and rough. "You can see it now: That's Galuna island."

"What's that light shining at the top of the mountain?"

Huh. Lucy was right. Looking closer, Gray could see a bright gold at the peak of the island, completely out of place in the purple and black. He turned around to ask Bobo about it—

Only, Bobo was gone.

"Wha—?"

Before he really got the chance to question where the fisherman had gone—shit, he hadn't fallen off the side of the boat, had he?—he paused as the sound of something—like rushing water, he thought, only impossibly loud—caught his ears. The next second, the boat _lurched_ under him, and he stumbled into the side of the boat. He was forced to grab on to the rails as his feet began sliding out from under him, the wooden floor tilting at a forty-five degree angle.

A dark shadow fell over them, and he looked up, only to freeze.

Towering above their (very _small_, very _fragile_) boat was about a hundred feet of raging water. It loomed over them, like a giant predator about to pounce, more than twenty times the size of the guildhall. His eyes widened. "Everyone hold on!"

Lucy panicked. "Tsunami! Happy, quick, grab the boat—"

The wave crashed over them.

* * *

**A/N: Okay, so I know Natsu's a pretty direct person, and he might seem just a **_**little**_ **out of character here, but I also think he's not so honest with himself about his emotions, and is part bluster? Like, I don't think he's as stupid or unaffected by things as he pretends. Hopefully I didn't stretch his character **_**too**_ **much though. **

**I ran into some unexpected difficulty this chapter. Namely, why Gray would agree to break all sorts of rules and go with Natsu on the S-Class at all. In canon, Lucy only went because Sagittarius' key was promised as part of the reward. My Gray would have no such motivating factor. As such, I decided to play up his past (which isn't stretching things **_**too**_ **much, considering Galuna's his backstory arc in canon) and have the reason be the whole demon-curse thing, since demons are something he's somewhat touchy about. As in, he's only going because he wants to make sure it's not another of Zeref's demons or something that'll ruin more people's lives. Of course, since this is from **_**Natsu's**_ **perspective, he doesn't know that, so he only sees Gray suddenly change his mind and agree to go. He's a little surprised, but it works out in his favor so he doesn't really question it **_**too**_ **much. **

**Also, I skipped the whole Erza and Natsu fight, plus the magic council dragging her to a sham trial because it wasn't really relevant, and would probably just be a whole lot of boring. As for the Laxus thing… well. I forgot? I kind of had to retroactively stick some references to it in there, since I'd honestly forgotten about Laxus' introduction. I haven't watched Fairy Tail in several months, and I'd only rewatched short parts of it for this. I guess I just missed the Laxus thing. Oops?**

**Plus, this was dragging on a bit too long, so I cut it short a little. I'd **_**intended**_ **to get through the discovery of Deliora in this chapter, but I guess that'll have to be next chapter. I guess you can say this chapter is the set-up to Galuna. Hey, at least they end up on the island by the end, right?**

**Also, the reasoning for Lucy going after them when she's not really as strong as either—well, in my mind, while Lucy's raw power and such are no match for the boys, 1) she's smarter (as evidenced by her using Horologium to trap them rather than summon a more powerful spirit to fight directly), and 2) they're not likely to have a knock-down, drag-out fight where the boys' stamina will give them an advantage. Plus, Laxus refuses to go, Mira's powers are kind of locked at this point, she's the closest to them, and no one else at the guild would come as close as her to matching them in combat. **

**Of course, Natsu still overpowers her, but my point is that Makarov didn't really have a whole lot of options at this point.**

**Plus, the whole thing with Natsu knocking Lucy out like that… well, I think this Lucy doesn't have as strong a bond to Natsu as canon!Lucy because 1) my Natsu isn't the one who introduced her to Fairy Tail and 2) because Lisanna was still around at the time Lucy first joined (one year after Layla Heartfilia's death and thus a year after Natsu joined), and she probably filled the spot of Natsu's best friend. Plus, Lucy and Levy have more in common, so Levy's this Lucy's best friend. **

**I… kind of forgot about Happy in the boat scene? My bad, it's just, it was meant to be a conversation between Lucy and Gray, and I guess Happy just wouldn't have fit that. If it helps, he was probably just sleeping or something. Or prodding at a thoroughly seasick Natsu. **

**And wow. This author's note got a little long (just like the chapter did…). Ahaha, whoops. **

**As always, please leave a review/comment! I appreciate all feedback on my writing and characterization. **

**Thanks!**

**~Silver**


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